


wanna be every button you press

by weakspots



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Ruining History (Web Series), Watcher Entertainment
Genre: (just a little), Alternate Universe - Teachers, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Eventual Smut, M/M, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Rimming, Rivalry, Slow Burn, except it's... one-sided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:42:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22761163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakspots/pseuds/weakspots
Summary: As soon as Shane Madej, newest addition to the history department, comes strutting through the door of the faculty room with his vegan cupcakes and shiny hair and radiant personality, he immediately takes everybody's heart by storm — except Ryan's.Yeah, Ryan can't stop thinking about how obnoxious  the guy is.Can't stop thinking about him altogether, really.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara & Sara Rubin, Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej, Shane Madej & Sara Rubin
Comments: 200
Kudos: 625





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [emerges from the ground a year after last posting in the bfu tag, covered in dirt and worms] haha whats up guys

Here’s the thing: Ryan thinks of himself as very easy-going.

Really, he gets along with just about every person he encounters. It’s why this profession is perfect for him: he’s tolerant, he’s understanding, he’s calm. As long as someone’s not an asshole, Ryan will be entirely non-judgmental and open-minded. 

But— mother of _God._

This guy’s truly testing his patience.

* * *

His ordeal begins the morning after the summer holidays when New Guy comes power walking into the faculty room, a smile on his face and carrying a tray of what appears to be cupcakes. 

_Vegan_ cupcakes, he announces, looking like a ray of fucking sunshine, _home-baked._

You can’t make this shit up.

Ryan frowns and sinks into his seat a little. He’s pretty sure everybody here likes or is at least fine with him, but they’re also aware that he’s very much not a morning person — and that he needs everybody who is one to stay away from him and not even _consider_ talking to him until he’s on his second coffee. Because he’s not a 36-year-old suburban mom of two, he doesn’t have a mug that states this, though, so New Guy’s probably gonna have to learn it the hard way. He _very_ much seems like a morning person, and Ryan pointedly pretends to stare at his phone when he starts chatting to people while handing out his food. 

God, and he’s _tall._

So much for Ryan’s height-related inferiority complex. It’s not like he believes he’d be a better basketball coach if he was 6’4”, it’s just that…

Well, it’d be pretty cool to be 6’4”, is all.

New Guy, of course, is flaunting that height. He’s got these long, long legs and he’s wearing maroon skinny jeans to put emphasis on that, and his floral shirt, tucked into those very jeans, is clinging to his body. 

It’s not like Ryan has ever heard more than the three Alt-J songs that occasionally pop up in the Spotify mixes curated by some faulty algorithm, but he’s pretty sure that people who listen to them dress exactly like this. 

Then again, he knows zilch about fashion and New Guy’s probably on top of it all, with a wardrobe that is most certainly filled with colorful pants and patterned socks and awful blazers. Ordered neatly, of course, not a wrinkle in ‘em.

New Guy’s also wearing glasses with clear frames, something Ryan tried on the last time he went to the optometrist and promptly decided he was going to stay wearing contacts, thank you very much. They look good on New Guy, which fills him with more disdain. 

Mostly, he just can’t get over the fucking cupcakes.

It seems desperate, like an extremely transparent grab for attention, as if he’s trying to manipulate everyone to immediately take a liking to him. 

Judging by everyone’s smiles directed at him, it’s working like a charm. 

Sara, an immediate target of attention with her colorful dress and blue curls, has already been roped into a conversation with New Guy. Her bright smile usually has the power to cheer Ryan up immediately, but seeing it aimed at New Guy is decidedly not fun.

It’s not like he’s _jealous,_ he just has a horrific vision of them becoming best friends and Ryan having to be around this guy 24/7. He does seem like the type to enjoy obscure bands and house plants, and there’s the vegan thing, too. He’s gonna glob onto her like some kind of slug.

He doesn’t even know why exactly he feels like this. 

Ryan _loves_ people, but somehow, everything about this guy immediately takes him aback. It’s like all his insecurities are staring him right in the face, confidence and shiny hair wrapped up in – and the height is the worst of all — this goddamn beanstalk of a person.

When he raises his head a little, he catches a whiff of the cupcakes, and they of course smell marvelous — go figure.

It makes matters worse, somehow.

Once New Guy‘s back is turned to him, still engaged in the conversation with Sara, he gets up as quickly as he can and snatches one. He hides it out of view, breaks a small piece off of it.

It’s amazing, of course.

He sighs, both delighted and annoyed, and eats it in small bites, staring at New Guy’s back, and when the bell sounds, he’s out of the room immediately despite still having an hour to go until he actually teaches a class.

He needs fresh air.

• • •

A shadow falls over him during his break.

“Hi, I don’t think we’ve spoken yet.” New Guy says, extending his hand to Ryan, and when Ryan gets up and holds out his own for a shake, he’s a little struck with how _huge_ New Guy’s is, how long his fingers are — but then again, yeah, he’s _tall._

So tall that Ryan’s eye-level with his clavicle, and he has to look up to actually make eye contact. “Shane,” New Guy says, “great to meet you.”

“Bergara,” he offers begrudgingly, still thinking, _God, he’s really fucking tall,_ “uh, Ryan.”

He’s the one to end their handshake, suppressing the urge to wipe his hand on his shorts. It’s not like the guy is gross — he smells quite pleasant, actually — it’s just that his hands are unnaturally soft. 

Makes Ryan feel inferior, with those guitar-calloused fingertips of his.

Shane’s smirking. “Wow, 007. You teach gym?” 

Ryan follows Shane’s gaze down to his shorts and Jordan’s and huffs out a laugh that’s actually genuine. “Wow. How’d you figure?”

Shane grins, leans in a little, lowers his voice. “You know, I can read minds. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, shoot. What am I thinking about?”

_I’m thinking about the fact that you are probably a nice person, but you also seem like the kind of English Lit teacher that would correct my grammar, and while I don’t condone stereotypes, you probably collect stamps or something else stupid, and despite your immaculate hair, there is a very high chance you are a virgin._

“Hmm. Let’s see. Right now, you’re contemplating that I probably teach English Lit, but you’re not _entirely_ sure.”

Shit. The other option, then. “Hmm. See, I’m actually gonna go out on a limb here and say it’s… History?”

Shane lets out a low whistle. “Whew. What gave it away? Is it the suspenders?”

Ryan’s not sure that _Oh, it’s ‘cause every history teacher I’ve ever met is a pretentious pain in the ass_ is a good thing to say just yet, so he nods as enthusiastically as he thinks is appropriate. “It _is_ the suspenders.”

“Knew it.” Shane smiles, puts a hand on his shoulder as if they’re best buds, or worse, as if he’d like them to be. “As you can see, I enjoy clichés,” he says, “so I think we’ll get along well, Space Jam.”

And just like that he’s gone — probably off to annoy the next person. Ryan’s too dumbfounded to actually follow him with his gaze, just stares at the empty space where he stood a second ago, rubbing his shoulder and thinking to himself, _you wish._

* * *

He has a Facebook request from _Shane Alexander Madej_ that afternoon, and who the fuck even uses Facebook anymore? (Well, Ryan does, but it’s because his family uses it. So he, at least, has an excuse, but this guy actually _shares_ things. There’s youtube videos of cats and pictures of him with friends and a couple posts endorsing Bernie, which is pretty cool, but still.)

He spends the next half hour browsing through his profile for no particular reason other than to get annoyed at what’s seeing. The guy’s from Chicago, is 33, has questionable taste in movies (Seriously, whose favorite flick is fucking _Speed Racer_?), and owns an orange cat. Ryan knows this because his profile picture is him holding it like a baby and smiling into the camera. It’s probably supposed to be cute, and objectively it is, but it just makes Ryan roll his eyes. Most of his other recent pictures — he seems to change them every other month — also include the cat. Then there’s a couple with his brother, who’s even taller than Shane. That alone should be illegal. 

And then there’s the 2016 and 2015 ones, which heavily feature… some guy. He’s slightly shorter than Shane, but not much — 6’1”, maybe. Definitely still taller than Ryan is, and pretty attractive, too. 

There’s a picture of them undoubtedly taken at LA Pride, arms around each other, flushed faces, a bit of glitter on Shane’s skinny shoulders. The gay thing comes as no surprise to Ryan — he knew what the guy was all about the second he walked through the door, and his gaydar usually sucks.

Those old pictures don’t feature the cat, which means Shane must have gotten it after the break-up. Well, good for him. 

And _2016_ , huh. Shane must’ve not gotten laid for a while. Unless he’s had flings, one-night-stands, but he really doesn’t seem like the type. And even if this guy was into casual sex, Ryan can’t really imagine a universe where his Grindr bio isn’t too ridiculous to actually get him laid.

He realizes, awakening from the fog of social media-stalking, that he’s been thinking about Shane’s (non-existent, for sure) sex life way more than he should have, and that gives him enough incentive to shut his laptop and grab his gym bag. 

Get his mind off things.

• • •

“So,” Sara says over dinner, “how do we feel about New Guy?”

Of course she calls him that.

“Hmmm,” Ryan hums, and she grins, reaching over to dunk her Quorn — he still hasn’t figured out what exactly that is or why anyone would hate themselves enough to eat it — nugget into his sweet and sour sauce, “Yeah, I know. He’s, uh. He certainly is a character.”

“Sure is.”

She’s been able to read him like an open book since the first day they met, and she makes a face. “Ooh, you don’t like him.”

“I don’t… I don’t _know_ him. Well, not enough to judge that. He sent me a Facebook request, though.”

“Huh. He didn’t send me one. You guys barely even talked!”

Ryan shrugs. 

She steals more of his sauce. “You should poke him.”

“I’m not going to poke Madej on Facebook.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean on Facebook.”

He gives her a death glare, which she answers with her sweetest smile. It works as well as any other day — he just can’t be mad at her. 

“You don’t think he’s got something strangely charming about him? I mean, I’m just saying. If he was a butch, I’d be all over that.”

“Yeah, but that’s because you’re all over every butch you meet.”

Her smile grows into a grin. “Fair point.”

They continue eating in relative silence, but Ryan feels like his pride has been wounded a little too much and he needs to bring his point across further, because really, him and New Guy? Unthinkable. 

“I’m _really_ not interested.”

It’s like she’s been waiting for it. “Why not? It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Unless you got something going on that I don’t know about, in which case I’m going to kill you. But, you know. May as well spice things up a little.”

“ _Spice things up._ Sara, he’s the blandest, whitest man I’ve ever seen.”

She shrugs. “If he looks this boring, he’s probably a freak. I’m speaking from experience. It’s the quiet ones you gotta watch out for.”

“Huh.”

“Yup. Man’s probably got the most extensive body count in Cali. Sexually speaking.”

“Hmm. Or the other kind of body count, and he’s a serial killer.”

“Plausible. _Or_ he’s a furry.”

“ _Shut up._ And can you stop stealing my food?”

“Sauce is a condiment, not a food. And I’m joking, by the way, please don’t fuck Shane.”

“I… really wasn’t planning to?”

She raises a brow.

“Sara!”

“Alright, alright. I’m just saying. You were staring at him a lot.”

“Yeah, because he dresses stupid.”

She frowns. “Sure, Mr. I-own-11-Lakers-jerseys.”

He sighs. 

Sara mock-sighs back. “Just, you know. Give it some time. Opposites attract, and all that. Again, not in a sex way, please don’t do that, just… From what I’ve gathered, I think you’ll get along well.” 

“Hmm.”

“...Give it a month.”

* * *

He does give it a month.

Mid-October, Ryan’s research has been completed and, to Sara’s dismay, he has come to his final conclusion: Shane Madej is just the menace Ryan assumed he would be. 

More so, even.

He rides a _bike_ everywhere, even now that it’s starting to get colder. And speaking of cold, he wears scarves that look as if he knitted them himself. 

He still brings all his weird vegan food into work, way more than he can eat and so he keeps sharing it with whoever wants it, and on the rare occasion that Ryan gives in and tries whatever plant-based snack or smoothie Shane hands him, it’s always _delicious._ (Or, _ooh, not that bad!_ which is the standard answer he’s got for when Shane asks him for his opinion. He’s not gonna let this guy have the upper hand.)

Thanks to some sort of divine intervention, their schedules prevent them from actually seeing each other in school a lot — it’s only on Wednesdays and Fridays that they meet in the morning, and only on those days are they actually on break in the faculty room together.

Which doesn’t mean they don’t see each other all the time, because, and this is the worst thing about all of this — Sara _loves_ him.

Which is objectively great, really. While she’s just about the most likable person Ryan has ever met, it’s always been a little harder for her to connect with people. So he’s glad it immediately clicked with Shane and — just like he expected — she’s got someone to discuss upcoming indie gigs and the best ways to keep her plants alive through the looming winter with. 

It just... it kind of sucks that it’s Shane.

Because Ryan would probably be able to cope if he didn’t live with Sara, but he does, and at least once a week he comes home to Shane invading his living space, sitting on their couch and offering Ryan a chipper, “Hi, Ry!” as if Ryan ever told him he could call him that. (Well, almost everyone does, but that’s not the _point._ )

He sits with them every once in a while, if there’s something on TV he enjoys, feeling out of place on his own damn couch because there’s a guy sitting next to him whose hair smells like fucking camomile. (If washing your hair with tea is what makes it so shiny, Ryan’s perfectly at peace with his being greasy.)

And Shane always has something to say — if it’s not a random fact about the movie they just saw (information that Ryan is sure he is losing important memories for, a beautiful childhood moment being chucked out just so _Did you know that they play this exact same sound in Jaws?_ can take up its place in his brain instead), it’s some sort of morbid historic event. 

Ryan would be lying if he said that those are not _somewhat_ fun — he is definitely into morbid shit, and he can barely contain his enthusiasm when Shane brings up the Dyatlov pass and they manage to scare Sara out of the room by having a half-hour discussion about whether it was aliens or a Yeti or the theory Shane favors, which is an avalanche. (Yawn.)

(It was fucking aliens, no matter what he says.)

Still, it’s like having the physical manifestation of a Wikipedia article sitting on your couch, and you can only take so much of that until your brain goes into overdrive.

It’s easier the afternoons that Sara’s at his place. She comes back in the evenings with glass-bottled kale smoothies or fermented lentil bread or _God knows what,_ all Ryan knows is that things keep accumulating in their fridge in neatly stacked tupperware boxes.

Not even his kitchen is safe from the ever-looming presence of one Shane Madej, it seems.

* * *

“You should join a movie night at his.”

Ryan frowns.

“ _What?_ You know he’s got decent taste. He has two of the posters you also have.”

“Are they framed?”

She laughs. “They’re framed.”

“Ugh. No, thank you.”

It’s her turn to frown now. She blows eraser shavings off her most recent drawing, observes it closely instead of looking at Ryan. “He’s been asking, you know. Should I make the eyes black or leave ‘em empty like this?”

“One black, one empty. And, huh? Asking what?”

“If you wanna join. He thinks it’s weird you haven’t.” 

“I’ll think about it.”

He really, really won’t. 

• • •

He joins them three days later, but to be fair, it’s because Steven blew off their cinema night an hour before the showing and he can’t be bothered to go see the flick alone. Last time he did that, he ran into a group of students and had to make up something about his friend getting popcorn, because the last thing he needs is a rumor about him being an incel spreading. It’s bad enough that he practically is one at the moment.

Shane answers the door with a wide smile. His apartment looks exactly like he imagined.

Not that he imagined it a lot, just as a fleeting thought when Sara mentioned having been to Shane’s place — but it’s small and neat and there are books everywhere, on shelves and just about every other flat surface, even in piles on the floor. But despite all that, and despite the plants in every corner and the giant vintage posters taking up the walls, it doesn’t look messy, just… home-y. 

Warm.

The man doesn’t even have a treadmill and it doesn’t smell like Axe body spray in here and yet Ryan feels welcome, and he kind of hates that. 

“Please, make yourselves at home,” Shane says, polite and cheery as ever, and so Ryan sits on the couch, hands clasped together, feeling a little light-headed. 

“I’ll fix you guys some food,” he says, of course he does, and Ryan takes the time to look around. It takes barely a minute until his eyes land on something horrific.

“Is that a fucking Ouija board?”

Shane sticks his head up from behind his counter. He’s got one of those kitchens adjoined to his living room, and so Ryan can’t even enjoy some quiet while Shane’s cooking up his rabbit food. “Huh? Oh, yeah. Got it for 2 bucks at a vintage store in Ohio, I think.”

“Yikes.”

“What?”

“Don’t fuck with that shit. Don’t, like, use it. Have you used it?” 

“What? No.” Shane laughs. “And I won’t. It’s hogwash.”

Next to him, Sara audibly clicks her teeth.

Shane’s staring at him now, confused, distracted from whatever he was stirring in his bowl. “...Ryan, please don’t tell me you believe in that.”

“Can we change the topic?” Sara says quietly.

They both ignore her.

“It’s not about belief! It's just… I really don’t think this should be in your house if you don’t even know what its origin is.”

Shane chuckles. “What’s it gonna do, call me a slur?”

“It might!”

Shane’s frying something now, still visibly amused. Ryan wants to strangle him. “Well, I’ve had it for a year, and so far it’s never caused any ruckus. You can go and turn it around, if looking at it upsets you.”

He’s been fighting the urge to do just that for a hot minute, so he doesn’t. 

It doesn’t take long for Shane to bring over their food, so at least he can sit at his sturdy, wooden dining room table with his back to it and try to forget its existence. 

Shane puts down his plate in front of him, accompanied with a perfectly-pronounced (well, so Ryan’s assuming) “Bon Appétit!”

He stares at his food. It certainly isn’t the weird, definitely lethal-looking slop that Shane and Sara have in their bowls. 

“Is this an omelet?” 

Shane nods, enthusiastically dipping his spoon into his bowl. “Yup. Protein. Nurture those guns.”

“I assumed you were, like, anti eggs.”

A grin. “I wouldn’t eat it. But my brother’s got some very happy and healthy chickens, so I got some for you.” 

“...Just for me?”

Shane nods, like this is the most normal thing in the world. Maybe it is. Ryan doesn’t know, all he knows is that he’s flustered, being treated so nicely by someone he wishes left the room every time Ryan walks in. 

Sara kicks him under the table, subtly. Ryan clears his throat. “Thanks, man.” 

“Don’t mention it. It’s making up for all the times I bore you with fun facts.”

Sara frowns. “You’re not boring.”

Shane shrugs. “I am,” he says, “to Ryan. And that’s fine. Every time he talks about the Lakers, I zone out, so we’re even.”

Ryan, all of a sudden, feels a rush of embarrassment, only he doesn't even know what about. He clears his throat. “This is, uh, a good egg.”

“Nice change of topic! And thanks. I haven’t made one in eons, so this actually means a lot.”

Ryan doesn’t know how to reply. It’s silent for a few more seconds before Sara attempts to save the day with a soft, “So, uh. Let’s put on that movie, eh?” 

• • •

The credits of Oldboy (a decidedly good choice from Shane, he’s gotta admit, especially because it’s the original and not the horrid 2013 remake) are running when Ryan spots it. 

_It,_ of course, being the weird, blue muppet sitting on one of Shane’s many bookshelves. “What,” Ryan says, “on earth is that.”

“Oh! That’s the Professor.”

“It’s… the Professor. Sure, that clears things up.”

Shane gets up and plucks the thing from the top of the shelf, doesn’t even have to get on his tiptoes for that. “I use it in class sometimes. _What?_ They love him. He’s a funny little guy.”

Ryan’s baffled. “You know you don’t teach primary, right?”

“Well, yeah. That’s why I use my own voice for him instead of the muppet one I _could_ have used.”

“I’m… Yeah, sure. Where did you even get this?” 

Shane carefully takes its little glasses off before he tosses Ryan the thing. “Made it,” he says, nonchalant. “He’s wearing an American Girl doll outfit I bought off eBay, but everything else was hard work.”

“You… are full of surprises.” 

He tries not to sound too charmed, but he is kind of (just kind of!) very deeply impressed by this whole thing. Almost makes him want to shadow in one of Shane’s classes, though he’s 1) not sure how to go about that and 2) very sure it would make him look like he has a crush, when it’s the complete opposite of that. 

He just wants to see Shane make a fool of himself, really. 

“Yup. I have to keep him up there, because Obi sees him as a rival of sorts. I’ve had to reattach his eyes twice. The Professor’s, not Obi’s.”

“Huh. Where’s he, anyway?” 

“Probably hiding. He’s a bit wary of strangers, especially jocks.”

“I’m _not—_ Come on.”

“But don’t fret. He’ll love you in no time.”

It’s extremely bold of Shane to assume he’s going to be here often enough for the cat to get attached to him, but that’s Shane’s own personal problem to deal with.

• • •

“We’re going to the Chapel this weekend.” Sara declares as soon as they’re out Shane’s door a while later, pulling her coat tighter around herself. 

“Uh, good idea. Why?”

She laughs quietly, turns to him. “Because you,” she says, finger firmly pointed against his chest like a warning, “ _so_ need to get laid.”

He doesn’t really know where she’s coming from, but hey, it’s the truth.

* * *

Through the red and blue lights flashing overhead and the haze of his third drink of the night, he almost doesn’t recognize him. 

_Almost._

Because the guy propped up at the bar _is_ tall and skinny and has irritatingly shiny hair, but he’s got no glasses on. He’s also wearing something best described as skimpy, and that’s being nice.

His first thought when he realizes it’s him is that this isn’t the kind of music Shane usually listens to. His second thought is that Shane’s probably not here for the music.

He elbows Sara, and being the traitor she is, she just bursts out laughing. “My God,” she says, “it’s like the universe is trying to tell you something.”

“Yeah, never to go out again.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She runs a hand through her curls. They’re purple now. “Well, I’m gonna go mingle. Have fun trying to avoid him.”

He grits his teeth. “Thanks. I will.”

“See you later, sweetheart. Don’t get kicked out for porking somebody in the bathroom again. And if you do, at least call me this time.”

It’s been years, and she’s still holding that over his head, and probably will forever. He grins. “Can’t promise anything.”

• • •

Thanks to the good-natured twink that grinds on him through four entire songs and then disappears into the night, and the tattooed dude with the bridge piercing who buys him a drink and then does just the same (but at least has the courtesy to slip him his number), Ryan almost forgets about him.

Right up until someone tall and lanky slides up next to him at the bar. “Hello, stranger.” the guy says in Shane’s voice, casually, like it’s the most normal occasion in the world. There’s a quieter song playing now and this corner of the place is pretty empty, either way, which means Ryan can’t just ignore him. 

He takes a sip of his drink instead, swallows too fast and almost chokes, and when he looks at Shane, he’s staring at him, _scrutinizing_ him, his eyebrows raised. God, Ryan’s so tired of having to deal with this guy wherever he goes. 

He’s just gonna have to start spending all his free time in the gym, it seems, God knows Shane would never step a foot in one. 

He acts surprised to see him, as if this is the last place on earth he expected to ever encounter him, which, to be fair, is true. “Whoa. Nice mesh.”

“Thanks. You okay there? I need to perform a Heimlich on you?”

It’s not a mouth-to-mouth joke, at least.

“Oh, I’m… great. Just a little… surprised? Didn’t peg you for the type of guy who hangs around in seedy bars, to be honest.”

Shane sighs. “Go on.” 

“Just, you know. You’re a nerd. I figured you stay home on weekends. Didn’t think you had any other hobbies besides, like, making vegan food and reading Shakespeare or whatever the hell nerds read.”

“Hilarious. Funnily enough, I do all these things. I’m also very into the male physique, though.”

It must be the second Tequila Sunrise of the evening that makes him lean in, getting on his tiptoes without really realizing it, and say, “Why, look at Mr. Versatile over here,” and it must be Shane’s own green-ish drink — lime rim and all — that makes him laugh and retort, voice lowered, “Oh, you’re not wrong, pal.”

Ryan really, _really_ needs to get out of here.

He can’t just run — too many people in the way, and also Sara’s going to laugh at him — and so he tries to at least steer the conversation in another direction. He clears his throat, gestures to his own eyes. “So, they are fake, then.”

“Huh?”

“Your glasses. Caught you red-handed.”

Shane wags his eyebrows, which is annoying. “Nah. Still blind as a bat, baby. Thankfully, they invented these things called contact lenses in the late 1900s. Crazy thing.”

Ryan has no retort other than, “Oh, _I_ wear lenses!”, and Shane smiles.

“Why don’t you wear your glasses?”

“I teach gym, man. And also, they make me look like a nerd, so…”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You got a good face for glasses, though. Good face in general.”

Ryan feels dizzy, but he manages to make it sound like a joke — because it definitely is — when he says, “You coming onto me?”

Shane grins. “No. I have morals.”

Ryan gestures to the tiny piece of cloth that doesn’t cover his stomach and barely qualifies as a shirt.

Shane shrugs. “Morals and an affinity for dick aren’t mutually exclusive, Ryan.”

He doesn’t really know what to say to that. Shane endures his awkward silence for another 20 seconds before he says, “Well, I’ll see ya around. Say hi to Sara from me.”

And off he goes, leaving Ryan standing there alone. Desperate for another drink, desperate to find his roommate and get out of here; desperate to either punch a wall or find someone to drag into the bathroom who’s going to fuck Ryan’s throat and get his mind off the hell that his life has become.

Fucking Madej. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic title by alt-j. of course. | [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0rQLEMuiiefSVqXq9baBbs?si=wx3gTLW2SyWZsQJrIMeuKw)
> 
> kudos and comments are as always appreciated. please send any complaints to whoever thought shane in [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EikT1yA5b5E) was a good idea.


	2. Chapter 2

“No costume?”

The long-standing tradition of combining Sara’s birthday celebration with their Halloween party is, of course, being honored this year as well. Most of their friends are there, with the addition of one new face, of course. He’s standing in the corner of their living room, a cup in hand and looking slightly out of place, mostly because he’s wearing something shockingly earth-toned and mundane.

Considering Ryan was expecting him to show up looking even more flashy than usual, he _is_ kind of disappointed, and to voice said disappointment is the only reason he immediately beelined to him. 

Shane just gawks at him. “I’m Amelia Earhart.”

“You’re... Amelia Earhart.”

“Yes. The pilot,” Shane says, slowly, like Ryan is dense, “disappeared in 1937, presumed dead, may she rest in peace.”

Ryan scoffs. “I know who Amelia Earhart is. What I’m saying is, this is just… your usual fit.”

“Very funny.”

“No, seriously! Except maybe the goggles, I _was_ a bit confused about those.”

Shane frowns, gestures to one of his long legs. “I don’t wear boots like these, either.”

“It wouldn’t be out of character!”

“Hm. I guess,” Shane says, takes a sip of the punch Ryan so graciously made. He makes a face. “Yikes. Is this store-bought?”

Feels like a slap in the face, that one. Being decent at making drinks is truly one of the things Ryan takes pride in — it probably comes naturally if you have an affinity (or, as Ryan would classify it, a primal need) for protein shakes. At least he thinks that’s what it is. Either way, his pride is wounded. 

“I— No, I made it. Did you know that? Are you being rude on purpose?”

“Huh. Why would I— No. I mean, it’s not bad, just a little… weak. Sorry, pal.”

Weak, huh. Not like he cares about Shane’s opinion that much — chances are the guy only likes cauliflower extract, or whatever — but if everyone else here thinks it sucks, Ryan’s going to be seriously upset.

He grabs for Shane’s cup, takes a swig.

It is really weak. 

“It’s _fine._ I’d get those tastebuds checked out if I were you.”

On second thought, drinking from Shane’s fruit punch was kind of weird. Judging by Shane’s furrowed brows, it _definitely_ was.

“I’m, uh. I’m gonna go get you a new one.”

He’s turned and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen before Shane can open his mouth to say, “Uh, thanks?” as if it’s a question, and he’s so, so glad that the only person present in there is Steven. 

He’s got one of his lobster claws pinned under his arm to eat a Snickers with his free hand, and he flinches when the door slams shut.

“Steven!” Ryan exclaims, a bit too enthusiastic, at least judging by the guy’s puzzled expression. “Does my punch suck?”

All Steven has to offer is a weak shrug. His costume creaks. “I’m driving, man.”

Ryan sighs.

A Milky Way comes flying through the air, then. It’s a weak throw, but Ryan‘s not going to hold that against Steven, considering the lobster claw and all. “Thanks, man.”

“No bother. So... What’s the deal with the punch?”

“Don’t know. Shane said it sucks. And now I’m trying to figure out if it really sucks or if he’s, like, stupid.”

“Huh.”

The room goes silent again. Ryan takes a moment to scroll through his phone, answering a text from Jake. He realizes he’s kind of drawing it out.

Shane’s probably desperately waiting for a new cup. Sucker. 

“So,” Steven says, his voice lowered like he’s about to bad-mouth somebody (which dear Steven Lim would never, in a million years, do), “Shane.”

“Shane,” Ryan repeats after he’s swallowed a bite of his chocolate bar.

“Yeah. Shane.”

Ryan doesn’t really know what to reply to that. Is he supposed to say his name again?

Thankfully, Steven speaks up again. “...That’s the tall guy?”

“I… Yeah. I guess. The annoying one.”

Steven’s just kind of scrutinizing him in response, the way Sara always does these days, like they’re trying to absorb his thoughts via hidden antennas in their head or something. Whatever the whole thing means, he’s not a fan of it. 

“What?”

By God, Steven looks _tense._ “I just… you know. From what you’ve told me, I just didn’t think… I mean, I talked to him a bit. I thought he was nice. Just… Not your usual cup of tea, so to speak.”

“Not my usual— Well, yeah, no shit he’s not. What’s this all about, anyway? First Sara, and now you, too? Can’t a guy dislike someone in peace?”

“...Dislike.”

“Yeah! I mean, I don’t… hate him or anything, he’s way more chill than I thought, actually. He just irritates the shit out of me. Is he, like, paying you guys to force me to be friends with him?”

Steven’s not really looking at him. “No, it’s just… I really thought you… Forget about it.”

“You thought I— What?”

Steven’s already walking past him, though, painstakingly opens the door to wave Ryan through with his claw. “Just… Let’s get back to the party, right?”

He doesn’t protest. 

Anything to get out of this conversation. 

• • •

Once he’s shoved a new cup into Shane’s hand with no further comment, he disappears to mingle with other people. He does, occasionally, glance around to find him, just to see who he’s bothering, and it just so happens that they look at each other the exact moment Ryan’s got half of one of the pumpkin cupcakes Shane brought shoved into his mouth. (It’s pretty marvelous. He drew little bats on it, too.) 

Shane grins at him when their eyes meet. 

And it’s _completely_ out of his control that the beer he’s been nursing makes him smile back. 

* * *

He’s no fan of dating apps, much prefers meeting guys in person the first time — however hammered they might be, it’s still better than uselessly texting for hours when both of them know there’s an ulterior motive behind it. He’s always found it very strange, talking to a guy for a while if the only goal is to get in his pants, but being upfront can be such a turn-off, too. 

All in all, it’s a losing game. 

But for one tall, obnoxious reason, he’s been avoiding bars and clubs for two weeks now, and hey, desperate times call for desperate measures. 

Of course, the chances of him running into Shane again are unlikely, what with LA’s gay scene not exactly being small. Shane probably doesn’t even go out much, but still. It’s a risk he won’t take. 

Bad enough they already — involuntarily, of course — hang out all the time.

He swipes left on every guy with glasses and/or that little Ⓥ in their bio. (The correlation would make for an interesting Venn diagram, probably.)

Serves Shane right.

* * *

“Hey,” Sara says, comparing one of her original drawings to two different printed versions, “do you think we could have a bake sale, too?”

This entire month’s going to be a stressful one. They have a charity event to plan for the end of November, right before the Thanksgiving weekend and Ryan’s birthday. It’s gonna be mostly sports stuff — they have a couple of sponsors to donate a minuscule amount whenever a participant lands a goal, for example, which means there must be a lot of goals for it to be lucrative — but Sara and a couple kids from her course will be selling art. 

“I guess that could happen? I think—,” and Ryan catches her grin, “oh, come on.”

“Should I ask him?”

“Unnecessary. He hasn’t signed up yet, but you _know_ he’s gonna participate. He’s either selling his weird lentil cakes, or he’s built himself a little toy theater and is telling his weird history stories with that blue thing.”

“The whole shtick’s been growing on me, actually. You don’t think it’s kinda cute?”

“It’s _creepy._ It’s a grown man putting on a one-person puppet show. It wouldn’t surprise me if he still plays with dolls.”

Her lip twitches. 

“I think you need to get over that internalized bottomphobia of yours.”

“That is not a word.”

“Hmm. Come over here.”

He gets up, ever-obedient. 

“Are these greens the same?”

“Uh. I don’t know?”

She jabs her elbow into his rib. “Then _look!_ Dingus.”

He bends down to inspect the prints more closely. “I think the one on the left is more vibrant. Go with that one.”

“Thank you. I agree.”

“Great.”

A beat of silence.

“He’s... not, by the way. Well, not entirely. Or so he said. I guess. So. Just saying, I’m not... phobic.” 

Sara visibly flinches. 

“No, I mean! I don’t know it from, like, experience. He just told me.” 

“He told you.”

“Yeah! At the Chapel. Wow, all of this sounds horrible without context.”

“Yeah, it really does. Now, do I _want_ the context?” 

“He just, like, showed up next to me when I was already tipsy and I called him versatile because of his drink, and he made a joke about it. I didn’t ask!”

“Sounds like you kind of did.”

“I was drunk!”

“And yet, you perfectly remember a conversation you had with Shane Madej about your sexual preferences.”

He sighs. He should have known she would pick this apart and see things that aren’t there.

“It’s not like he asked for mine!” 

“Well,” Sara says, gleeful, like this is _amusing,_ “maybe he’s just waiting to find out… naturally,” and leaves that hanging in the air. 

If it’s a joke — and surely it would be — it sure as hell isn’t funny.

* * *

The dating apps turn out to be more of a distraction than a solution — there’s nobody who sweeps him off his feet or even as much as catches his eye, and he’s pretty sure that if he slid into the DMs of that guy from a few weeks back he’d get ghosted — or blocked, probably.

He wasn’t really feeling it anyway.

Celibacy it is, then.

* * *

**(you, 7:15pm)  
** Question. Whats so great about speed racer?

 **(you, 7:15pm)**  
This is Ry 

It’s the first time they’ve texted, and he feels absolutely awful about being the one to hit him up first — to hit him up at all, really. But hey, Sara is still busy finishing drawings like a madman and he’s bored and can’t be bothered to dust off his Xbox or go to his room to jerk off _,_ so this is it. 

Any port in a storm. 

He’s got other friends to talk to, sure, but the Speed Racer thing has just been on his mind. 

(Not like he and Shane are even friends.)

 **(madej, 7:20pm)  
** Good evening, Ryan. What ISN’T great about it? 

**(you, 7:21pm)  
** Idk just never thought it was special

 **(madej, 7:22pm)  
** Yikes... Well, that is your own very wrong opinion, then.

He really, really doesn’t know what to reply to that. Is the rolling eyes emoji sufficient? Does Shane use emojis? Does he even own a phone _capable_ of receiving emojis? Ryan can’t remember. Not like he looks at Shane’s hands a lot, so it just makes sense he’s never really taken a look at his phone. Knowing him, he owns a blackberry or something else outdated. 

It’s surprising he doesn’t communicate by messenger pigeon.

(He needs to remember that one to bring up as banter one day.)

Ryan decides to simply not reply — Shane’s loss if he’s so awful at holding a conversation over text. It does feel kind of triumphant to leave him on read.

His phone vibrates once he’s gotten through that one particularly hard TwoDots level, and he only had to pay $2.99 to get there.

 **(madej, 7:40pm)  
** I won’t let this slander stand, by the way. 

**(madej, 7:40pm)**  
What are you doing this weekend?

Huh.

 **(you, 7:41pm)  
** Nothing planned

 **(madej, 7:41pm)  
** Cool! Fancy a movie night? Friday, 8pm. 

“You’re smiling at your phone.”

“Huh?”

Sara’s staring at him from across the room. “You’re smiling,” she repeats, “care to show me a pic of the guy?”

“I’m… It’s, uh, just this really funny dog video.”

Sara scoffs, though she’s turned her attention to the creature she’s sketching again. It’s got 3 tails and countless eyes, and Ryan’s already hoping she’ll let him help her decide what color she should go with once she starts in on that.

Christ, his life has become excruciatingly mundane. He could really use some dick. 

He clears his throat. “And also, uh, Shane’s invited us for Speed Racer night. Friday. 8pm.”

“Speed Racer.”

“Yeah. Just wanna know what his obsession with it is all about.”

She frowns. “Didn’t even know he was obsessed with it.”

“Yeah, well. You know. It’s on his Facebook.”

“Hmm,” is all she has to say to that, apparently.

Ryan sighs, about nothing in particular, types a couple responses that all sound too enthralled, and just decides to go with a single word. Full stop, no exclamation mark, of course. Wouldn’t want to come across as too into the whole thing. 

**(you, 7:50pm)  
** Betcha.

 **(madej, 7:51pm)  
** :-)

• • •

He finds himself looking forward to Friday.

He curses himself for that, buries himself in more work than he needs to, and at the same time, wonders why he is making such a big deal over such insignificant happenings.

• • •

“Sooo,” Shane says, setting down a plate on his little coffee table and then plopping down next to Ryan, “I don’t know how you guys feel about this. Feel free to say no. But this is my favorite way to watch this, so… if you want the whole Shane Madej Speed Racer Experience, dig in.”

“These are, uh, brownies,” Ryan states the obvious, for lack of anything else to say.

“Yeah. They sure are,” Shane says, accompanied by what Ryan has come to call the Signature Annoying Eyebrow Raise.

“Oh, my God,” Sara mutters, but she grabs one nonetheless.

“What?” Shane says, “It’s legal. And I can’t smoke because of Obi, so, you know.”

Ryan is, rightfully, a little baffled. “You made pot brownies for us?”

“Yup. On the house, baby.”

“Are these vegan?”

Shane rolls his eyes. “Nothing in this place that isn’t, Ryan. Except the cat food.” 

Said cat is actually in the living room today, glaring at Ryan from behind a plant pot. Ryan blinks back. “I don’t really know what to say,” he finally lets out, “except that this makes so much sense.”

“If it helps, I am plenty weird without weed.”

“Yeah, you don’t say.”

Shane has the audacity to touch him then, puts a finger to Ryan’s chest and pokes him into a slight recline on the couch. “Relax,” he says, “and enjoy this enthralling, cinematic experience.”

“Oh, I’m sure I will.”

If Shane catches the sarcasm, he never mentions it. He just sinks back into the cushions on his couch, obviously satisfied with himself and the world. 

• • •

Speed Racer, Ryan decides two brownies in, is pretty alright.

* * *

Ryan can’t remember a single time he has ever won at rock-paper-scissors against Sara. 

Which is fine, really. 

At this point, it’s kind of a running joke between the two of them, and they only ever use it for mundane things — who is going to do the dishes or who gets to pick the breakfast place, that type of deal — but right now, his absolute incapability has caused him to sit at Shane’s table, staring down into a Schaumburg high school mug, so vintage that the (hopefully non-toxic) paint is chipping off. 

He didn’t really expect to spend his Saturday morning — or any morning ever, really — at Shane’s place.

But Shane had left them two options last night — sleepover or take an Uber. Ryan, of course, had vouched for option 2, and he’d gladly accepted Shane’s offer to pay for it, too — not like he had been _begging_ to get high, so it kind of was Shane’s fault that they were under the influence and therefore unfit to drive.

Because Ryan’s life is just one big miserable chain of awful events lately, of course Shane had been out collecting his newspaper when Ryan's Uber driver had dropped him off so he could drive Sara's car home. Shane was wearing pyjamas and fucking _slippers,_ and Ryan felt rude saying no to coffee.

“See,” Shane says, stirring said coffee, “oat milk’s not half-bad, right?”

“I’ve had worse,” Ryan muses, because he has.

They attempt a conversation about work, but it’s a bit awkward — there’s nothing they have in common there, and it just feels like conversation for the sake of having a conversation. 

Ryan mentally kicks himself. A nice, fat kick to the shin.

He should have just gone to Starbucks.

The clock on the wall is ticking. Shane’s stirring his coffee again. Somehow, it seems like he’s just doing it so he’s got something to occupy himself with. “I put the ouija board away, by the way. In case you didn’t notice,” he says, once the silence has become too uncomfortable.

“Oh, uh. Yeah. I kind of assumed you did. Or, well, _hoped_ you did, because the other option would mean it moved by itself, so…”

The Signature Annoying Eyebrow Raise strikes again. “Yeah. No worries. This place is ghoul-proof.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I’ve been living here for almost five years and if there were any ghosts here I’d have noticed?”

He’s not ready to have the conversation yet about how some people can just sense these things and others can’t, and he’s also not sure he can use the word _receptive_ without making it sound dirty, so he says nothing except, “Well, _you_ haven’t.”

Somehow, Shane still sees that as an incentive to ruin this. “I guess you’d have to sleep over to make sure, Ryan.”

That’s innocuous enough. It’s nothing. It’s banter. 

Except… Except _maybe he’s just waiting to find out… naturally._

Ryan’s stomach churns. He burns himself on his coffee drinking it too fast.

Damn Sara to hell with the stupid fucking ideas she’s planting in his head. It’s absolutely... foolish to believe that Shane would ever— that he could— and really, it’s kind of homophobic, isn’t it? Casting aside the fact that Sara herself is unfathomably gay, it kind of is offensive that she thinks that Shane just chose to crush on the next best guy, or that said guy would be Ryan, because— Because really, Shane’s probably got something going on anyway. Despite being kind of obnoxious and just straight-up _strange,_ he’s not terribly unattractive. There’s someone out there for everyone, isn’t there? So surely there’s someone out there whose dick gets absolutely hard at the idea of spending a nice, sunny Saturday morning with this guy. So, no worries to Ryan. And… really, on a nice, sunny Saturday morning like this, he looks— He almost looks—

Something touches his leg. Ryan jumps up so fast the chair’s legs screech almost as loudly as he does.

Shane looks concerned, and then delighted. He chuckles to himself, shaking his head, and gets up to gather the cat — because of course it’s the cat — in his arms. “It’s the Obi-man! He wants attention. And food. Probably just food.”

He walks the short distance to Ryan to, carefully, hand the animal to him. “Wanna hold him while I fix him some food?”

He’s expecting him to protest, but after a second of squirming, Obi calms down, even purring. He doesn’t really know how cats work, but this one seems to like him.

Shane grins at him from the kitchen. “Oh, wow, he loves you. Great job. Don’t get too attached, though, Obi. Not your new dad.”

And there you have it, folks.

Nothing to be concerned about. 

* * *

The Big Day — meaning, the day of the charity event — starts off absolutely terrible. 

It wouldn’t be that bad, really. He went to bed early and he sleeps long enough to not be in a horrible mood and Sara lets him have control over the music in her car. That’s fine. That’s dandy.

They do still have to collect someone, though, and so spends the ride from Shane’s place to school in the backseat, surrounded by little trays of cookies and tupperware and two giant, lockable cake containers, all while Shane rides shotgun.

He’s wearing a _T-shirt._ Which, of course, is a normal piece of clothing, but on Shane, it’s jarring. Ryan’s never seen him out of one of his ridiculous outfits, except for that time at the Chapel he has almost successfully managed to repress. 

And to be fair, that outfit was ridiculous as well. 

But he almost looks like a normal dude, if it wasn’t for the glasses and his hair and his _headband._ He made it himself, apparently. He tells Sara this, as if crafting their own headbands is just something normal people do. 

Ryan quite literally counts the seconds until they’re there. 

At least Shane will be in the hall, out of his sight, and Ryan will be able to play his favorite game in peace. 

• • •

He gets a singular hour of the aforementioned peace and fun and happiness before Sara disappears into the hall, not without looking over her shoulder to wave at him. Shane comes back a minute or two later.

Ryan’s almost proud of her. It must have taken some convincing to get Shane to step foot in a place where sports are being played.

“Hurry up with whatever we’re doing here,” Shane says after doing that white-person-half-jog towards him, “Sara said she’d watch my booth, and God knows when I come back she’ll have snuck, like, half of it into her purse.”

“It’s the only reason she’s doing this.”

“It really is.” There’s a grin on Shane’s face that’s unreadable, and therefore slightly unsettling. “So,” he says, “what exactly is this?”

Ryan passes him the ball. “It’s a ball. You throw it. Through the hoop, you know.”

“I— I am very aware of what basketball is, Ryan.”

“Are you now?”

Shane _winks,_ which sucks. Ryan hopes nobody’s watching them, because they might get the wrong impression of whatever is happening here. “Yeah, I know a guy who won’t shut up about it.”

He sighs. “Okay. Well. You throw hoops, and the more hoops you throw, the more starving kids get fed. So… let’s just get it over with, shall we?”

Shane nods. “For the sake of the kids and my cupcakes, yeah.”

He trudges over to the hoop, takes up a pretty good position almost immediately. Ryan can’t help it, this is pretty fun. “You’re a natural.”

“Shut up. Don’t ruin it.”

Shane squints up at the hoop. And Ryan knows that he, himself, he’s staring, but at least he’s got reason to — Shane looks really funny like this. He’s all limbs. 

He can’t wait for him to embarrass himself. 

“Come on,” Ryan shouts, “for the kids.”

Shane scoffs, but he smiles. He makes eye contact with Ryan while he positions himself to throw the ball. 

When he does, after a minute of hesitation and trying to scope out how to best make the throw, eventually let go of the ball, he does a little jump — as if he needs to, with that height — and his shirt rides up. 

Ryan doesn’t know why he’s so transfixed. He truly, truly doesn’t. But he is, and while the moment lasts a mere 0.2 seconds, it happens in slow motion for him — the pale skin of Shane’s stomach and the way his hip bones slightly jut out and worst of all, his fucking happy trail. 

He doesn’t even know why he has the visceral reaction, only that he does. It’s not even like he hasn’t seen Shane’s stomach before — again, that stupid night at the Chapel is haunting him. But…

Christ.

_Christ._

People cheering takes him out of his haze, and then Shane’s walking up to him, smiling sheepishly. It takes exactly 4 seconds of him holding his hand up for Ryan to realise he’s supposed to high-five him, so he does. His own hand is clammy, somehow.

“You okay there, bud?”

Ryan blinks.

“I, uh. Sure. Awesome shot.” 

Though he has no idea, it very likely wasn’t, and Shane must know, too, because he grins, gives him a slap on the shoulder. Ryan feels like he’s been electrocuted. “No need to get cute with me, Ry.” And just like that, he’s walking into the direction of the hall again, leaving Ryan standing there, staring at his back and feeling utterly betrayed by his own dick.

This is bad.

This is really, _really_ bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one goes out to val for beta-ing, everybody who was so nice about chapter 1, and to shane's old tweets about weed.  
> [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0rQLEMuiiefSVqXq9baBbs?si=wx3gTLW2SyWZsQJrIMeuKw).


	3. Chapter 3

It seems like Ryan only manages to actually calm down and take even breaths once he’s back home, emptying the tote bag full of leftover baked goods Shane pressed into his hand last-minute onto the kitchen counter with haste and then retreating to the couch, a strawberry muffin in hand. He eats in small, reluctant bites, irritated even more than usual by how good it is.

He had, unlike Sara, politely declined Shane’s invitation to join him for _nonalcoholic craft beer à la Madej —_ seriously, fuck this guy, and fuck the fact that he pretty much gave Ryan a boner in front of hundreds of people — citing the fact that he had had a stressful day, which, well, wasn’t exactly a lie.

Not like Shane had to know that said stress didn’t come from throwing hoops for hours and instead from his dick wanting to take a brief dip in Lake Madej. Revolting.

But, hey, these things happen, right?

Ryan’s kind of desperate and kind of into tall guys and kind of hasn’t gotten laid in ages, so this is probably the most natural reaction in the world for a guy like him. 

Honestly, come to think of it, it would’ve been weird to _not_ react like that.

That would be repression, and he’s definitely not repressing anything. _That_ would mean that there are any kind of deeper feelings to hide. And ultimately, it could’ve been anyone standing there, luring him in with height and nice hair and big hands and an endearing lack of athletic skill. Just so happened to be Shane.

He takes his much-needed shower as an opportunity for a little experiment, mostly because Sara isn’t here to yell at him for staying in there for too long and wasting water.

It does yield results, though not necessarily the ones he was hoping for — sadly, he _is_ very much capable of jerking off thinking about Shane. He doesn’t dare to actually come up with a whole scenario, dream up some sort of bad porn storyline where Shane’s his pizza guy or electrician or, fuck it, his history teacher — that’d be a tad too much. He does, however, still manage to get hard conjuring up random snapshots, and that’s bad enough. Maybe it’s even worse, doing this while thinking about the way Shane’s hair falls into his face after he’s run a hand through it. The way he sometimes smiles at Ryan from across the room, intently watching Ryan crunch on whatever weird homemade shit he brought to school this time. The way his ass looks in his stupid fucking colorful jeans he always wears.

He comes, panting, one hand braced against the tiles, recalling that time Shane pushed him down against his couch, except in his clouded memory, it’s a little harder, a little more deliberate, and maybe he lets his hand linger on Ryan’s chest for a little longer. 

Yeah, this sucks.

The silver lining is that once he’s done catching his breath, he feels absolutely awful about the entire thing, and he vows to himself to banish Shane as far away from his spank bank as humanly possible.

He’s not a hopeless case, at least.

• • •

It is, coincidentally, that very night that he actually pieces together just what the hell Steven must have been going on about at the party. Which is a bit pathetic, considering that was roughly a _month_ ago, but it’s not as if he’s been thinking about that non-stop. Just— every once in a while, the absurdity of the conversation has been weighing on him.

 **(you, 9:30pm)  
** Hi, did you think I like Shane

 **(steven, 9:31pm)  
**What? 

**(you, 9:32pm)  
** You implied it I think. Halloween?

 **(steven, 9:32pm)  
** Oh, yeah. That. 

**(steven, 9:32pm)  
**...Maybe? 

**(you, 9:33pm)  
** Ew

 **(you, 9:33pm)**  
No way

 **(steven, 9:33pm)  
**Yeah I pretty much gathered that. Sorry.

 **(you, 9:35pm)**  
Okay

At least that’s out of the way. 

Kind of creepy, though, that Steven somehow sensed something Ryan wasn’t even sensing yet, some sort of spark emerging from whatever wires are now temporarily crossed in his brain. Just a little spark, nothing more, nothing less. But... well, something.

And that’s worrying enough.

 **(you, 10:12pm)  
**Hey, what made you think that in the first place?

 **(you, 10:14pm)  
** Now Im kinda worried he might be getting vibes from me or something. I dont wanna lead him on or make him think I want in his pants

 **(you, 10:14pm)  
**Because I really dnot

 **(you, 10:14pm)  
** *dont

 **(you, 10:16pm)  
**I mean hes soooo not my type too?

 **(steven, 10:36pm)  
**Again, I don’t know. I just got the impression. Ignore me.

 **(you, 10:40pm)  
** Alright

 **(you, 10:40pm)  
**for real tho. Not into him

 **(you, 11:15pm)  
**At all. 😂

 **(steven, 11:20pm)  
**...Overkill, bro.

 **(you, 11:21pm)  
** ?

* * *

It’s not much of a surprise.

Maybe Ryan’s even been considering it, perhaps he’s had a very fleeting thought or two about the whole thing. _What if Shane...,_ and then a bare-bones idea, an unfinished sentence, the i’s not dotted and t’s not crossed yet. 

After all, it’s just what Shane is like. He did it for Sara’s birthday, so naturally, he would do it for Ryan’s as well. He’d do it for anyone. So — while already irritated about whatever is awaiting him — he’s not exactly perplexed when he walks into the faculty room on the 26th and Sara grabs him by his shoulders and shoves him, gentle but persistent, into Shane’s general direction. Shane, whose entire face lights up and who says, “Oh, everybody gather ‘round for the birthday boy!” as if Ryan’s not ready to curl up and die _already._

He endures the half-hearted rendition of the stupid song and the rest of the shenanigans without much protest. It’s only when things have calmed down and everyone else has scurried away already that Shane steps aside and Ryan feels like the ground is pulled away from underneath his feet.

“Oh, you can’t be serious,” he breathes. 

It’s a fucking cake. 

Ryan, for a second, feels so overwhelmed he fears he might cry.

He shouldn’t have this kind of reaction, it’s not like Shane doesn’t spend half the time trying to stuff Ryan’s — and everyone else’s, he’s not special — face with whatever he’s cooked up. But… it’s a cake. Ryan has no idea how much time this must have taken him — but it’s too much, at least too much for someone who is perpetually vexed by Shane, who considers him more a nuisance than anything even close to a friend. 

Sara _aaws._ It’s what finally makes him actually look up from the thing and at Shane instead and say, “Jesus Christ, this is…”

He doesn’t know what it is, really, except a stupid fucking cake with yellow and purple icing that says _Happy B-Day, Ry!_ in swirly, perfect handwriting. There’s tiny handmade marzipan basketballs lining the sides of it in neatly spaced rows. This must have taken hours. 

“You like it?” Shane asks, and it’s almost _shy —_ as if he’s expecting Ryan to tell him he hates it. He does, of course, hate the _idea_ of it — he hates that Shane put so much effort into this, he hates that he cares about Ryan’s opinion on it, he hates whatever this _means,_ he hates that he just belatedly realized that Shane’s wearing a yellow shirt with a purple tie just to top the whole thing off and make it, ugh, _cute._

“I love it, man,” he blurts out, and it’s true. Sara _aaw_ s again. He ignores her. “I… Really, thanks, Shane. This is awesome.” 

“You’re welcome, Ryan,” Shane says, voice meek. He kind of looks like he wants to be somewhere else as well, and then it just kind of happens — Ryan doesn’t know what to do with his hands, he doesn’t know what to do at _all_ _,_ and so he does the first thing he can think of — which is opening his arms and saying, “Come on, bring it on.”

And so he does.

It’s very innocuous, if anything it borders on a bro hug, really — it lasts maybe three seconds, but that’s three seconds too much of being pressed against Shane’s chest, three seconds of a hand running over his back.

Shane really is a tryhard at getting people to find him endearing and it may not entirely work on Ryan, he may not be able to flip that particular switch in his brain, but it’s bad enough that he gets his fingers in there and picks it apart, scrambles it enough to make him do stuff like this. 

Once it’s over, Shane’s turned around immediately, cutting a huge piece out of the cake, and Ryan helplessly looks over to Sara, who’s staring at him with huge, blown eyes.

Whatever she’s realized, Ryan’s not sure he’s entirely caught up.

* * *

Despite all of Ryan’s personal (and interpersonal) hang-ups lately, things continue business as usual.

Aside from the fact that he bails out on two of their movie nights — one at Shane’s place and one at theirs. Not his fault that he suddenly had a lot of work to do, which consisted of staring at the ceiling, finishing Breath of the Wild for a second time, shoveling leftover vegan stir fry into his face, and staring at the ceiling some more.

He usually doesn’t care for Christmas much, mostly because he gets whiplash going back and forth between his family’s eccentric, over-the-top festivities whereas Sara celebrates a quiet, solemn Hannukah in their home, but God, is he excited for it this year. There’s a few weeks left, but he’s pretty much counting down the days. 

He _needs_ a break from all this, and so he’s going to sit there, eat his food, and maybe even thank a God he hasn’t prayed to in decades for some quiet, uneventful, Shane-less time. 

* * *

“So… hey. Good or bad news first?”

Ryan was just about to fall asleep with his head in Sara’s lap, and he sighs. “You know it.”

“Alright. Good news, then. So, um, you know that librarian?”

“The one you’ve been going on and on about for what feels like a decade? No, I have no idea.”

“Shut up,” she says, but there’s a smile in her voice, and she continues running her fingers through his hair (having a roommate who will, without asking, platonically alleviate your touch deprivation is pretty good in these dire times), “it’s been like a week.” 

“Felt like a decade to me.”

“Well... either way, I have a date tonight, so.”

He whistles through his teeth. “You asked her?”

She scoffs. “No. I swung by again to get some material for class the other day and — don’t laugh at me! — got some books on anatomy and we got talking, and... you know. I made a complete fool out of myself, but I guess she thought it was endearing. She’s picking me up later tonight, so you can have the car.”

“Uh, thanks. For what?”

“Well, this is the bad news. It’s Saturday, so—”

“Oh, God.”

“—so you get to hang out with your best bud alone. Sorry.”

He sits up. She does not, in any way, look sorry at all. Smug, maybe. 

“Sara.”

“What?” 

Yeah, definitely smug.

“Please.”

She shrugs. “You don’t have to go. But you said you would this time, and a little birdie’s told me that he thinks something is up with you and that he’s upset you somehow. I don’t know if you want to give him the satisfaction of being right by bailing on him _the third time in a row._ And on such short notice, too!”

He knows she didn’t tell him on purpose so he wouldn’t have enough time to call it off and make it look non-suspicious, and he can’t even hate her for it. It’s pretty smart. “I’m— he didn’t upset me. And there’s nothing up with me, I just don’t wanna hang out with him. It’s awkward and we have nothing in common and—”

“You sure he didn’t upset you with the cake? You seemed upset.”

“It was good cake. Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sara shakes her head at him. “I just wish… You know, you don’t have to tell him what’s up. You don’t have to tell him anything. You don’t have to go, either. I just wish you’d… talk to me, at least.”

“About what?”

“Ryan—”

“Sara.”

“Just… you know, think about it,” she offers, “and if you want to talk. We can talk.”

“Cool,” he says, very much sarcastically, and she stabs her bony elbow into his ribs. It’s fine, he knows he deserves it.

“I’ll go,” he says, then. The _for you_ goes unspoken.

She doesn’t even seem satisfied with the answer, but then again, neither does Ryan. 

* * *

“The ones with the stars on them are my Best Of. See if there’s something you fancy.”

Ryan’s eyes skim over Shane’s (impressive) DVD and VHS collection. There are post-its stuck to the shelves indicating the first letter of the title and there are, in fact, tiny yellow stickers on some of the cases. Ryan’s not sure why he’s surprised by the careful organization — of course Shane is a stationary connoisseur. 

Ryan has never really paid attention when he was reading in the break room, but the guy probably uses real bookmarks instead of just dog-earing the pages. 

Loser.

“The Social Network is in your Best Of twice,” Ryan observes, “Which means you own it twice.”

“One’s the steel book. _And_ that’s a kickass movie.”

It is a kickass movie. Ryan doesn’t really know why he called him out for maybe the only cool thing about him. “Touché... Oh, God. Singin' in the Rain, really?”

He turns around, the DVD in hand. 

Shane’s just standing there, one brow raised. His cat’s sitting on the counter, staring at him with squinty eyes. Ryan feels a bit outnumbered. “Oh, here comes the part where Mr. Protein Shake makes fun of me for my harmless enjoyment of musical theatre. Come on, lay into me. I can take it.”

“No, I— Do you ever shut up? I love that movie.”

“Oh.” 

Ryan scoffs, grinning despite himself. “Stereotypes over stereotypes, Shane.”

“I apologize. Sorry that it didn’t occur to me that the man who owns, what, 40 basketball jerseys—”

“It’s 11!”

“— _11_ basketball jerseys has a singular good opinion. I’ll call the LA times to make sure they announce it, front page and all.”

“Yeah, bet you’ll get a discount if they release it the same time as your Lonely Hearts ad.”

Shane stares at him for a second. They were just harmlessly bickering, but Ryan must’ve hit a nerve, because he just says, “I… Oh, my God, let’s just watch the movie,” picking up the cat and gesturing for Ryan to pop it into the player.

Interesting.

• • •

“It’s kinda weird without Sara here, huh?” Shane says once the credits are rolling. 

Ryan feels like he’s getting at something - maybe the fact that they barely talked at all, despite the fact that when Sara is here they never shut up - but he doesn’t want to get into that, so he decides to deflect. It’s what he does best. “Yeah. I guess. Mostly because the cat doesn’t ignore me.”

It true, at least, he pretty much climbed into his lap the second Ryan sat down. “So, Obi,” he muses, “you a Star Wars guy?”

“Are you asking him or me?”

“He’s not answering, so I guess it’s your turn.”

Shane reaches over to pet him, which means that — just technically — his hand’s in Ryan’s lap. Ryan stares ahead until it’s over and very decidedly doesn’t think about anything at all. 

Come to think of it, Ryan can’t really believe he just sat here enjoying a nice strawberry cider — nonalcoholic, of course, he still has to get home, and hopefully as soon as possible — and watching a musical with Shane while Shane’s cat is curled up in his lap. 

This is probably the gayest thing Ryan has ever done, and he’s been spit-roasted. (College was a simpler time.)

“It stands for Orange Boy, by the way,” Shane announces, which is stupid as shit and therefore heartbreakingly endearing, “and I’m not entirely sure I actually like the new ones or if I’m just in love with Poe, but yeah, I’d say I’m a Star Wars guy.”

“That’s valid. Guess we could round Sara up and just watch those one day.”

He doesn’t know what compels him to say it. He doesn’t want to do that. “Not the prequels, though,” he adds.

 _“Especially_ the prequels. They’re fun if we watch ‘em the Madej Way.”

“Meaning stoned.”

Shane clicks his tongue. “Exactly. Speaking of which, I got some goods. They’re better than last time.”

He’s already on his way into the kitchen, and it’s tempting, but also Ryan needs to go home and stare at his wall again.

“I’m… you know. I have to drive. And I can’t be bothered getting an Uber home and then back here tomorrow, so…”

Shane shrugs. “Stay over. It’s a fold-out couch. Obi might try to smother you, though.”

Absolutely fucking not. With sprinkles on top.

“I… Thanks, but no. I’m… Got stuff to do and… Gym in the morning and I don’t wanna be a bother so I’ll… No. Sorry that you put the effort in. If you don’t want them to spoil or whatever, I can take some home?”

Shane shakes his head, smiling. “I’ll put some in a bag. But, surprise, I have other friends to share them with. I don’t just spend my life waiting for you to give me the time of day, you know?”

Ouch. “Oh. Uh, yeah, I guess.” 

Ryan doesn’t know why he can’t bring himself to question Shane’s claims about having friends, just to be a little mean. Or, more cutting, interrogate him about his usage of the word _friends_ in regard to them, because they’re very much not that. Acquaintances by proxy, maybe that is the right term for it. With benefits — the benefits of course being baked goods and getting baked.

 _Acquaintances_ _by proxy with platonic benefits_ doesn’t really roll off the tongue easily, but what can you do?

• • •

Ryan’s pretty much out the apartment already when Shane grabs his arm to stop him dead in his tracks.

“Oh, by the way, Ryan, hold on. Um… Well, I got a field trip planned with one of my courses a couple of weeks after the holidays and so I was looking at museums online and I just… Were you aware that there’s a sports museum?”

Ryan was very much not aware, and he shakes his head. “Nope. Why?”

“Oh, it’s just… They got mostly Dodgers memorabilia and I’m actually not sure how extensive their Lakers repertoire is, if there’s any at all, but I was thinking we could...” 

A pause. Shane looks him in the eye, and his expression crumples, all of a sudden. 

“Actually, forget about it. It’s gonna come across wrong no matter how I put it, so let’s not do that, you’ll just make fun of me.”

“Huh?”

“Just, nothing. It was just an idea, I don’t know, you could go there with Sara or something. Or someone else. Look at some jerseys. Make a day of it. Uh, get home safe.”

He gets all but shoved out the door, then, and that’s fine.

He was itching to get away from here anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone for the kudos and lovely comments - keep em coming! :^)  
> [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0rQLEMuiiefSVqXq9baBbs?si=wx3gTLW2SyWZsQJrIMeuKw).


	4. Chapter 4

He hears the front door slam shut while he’s in the shower and he thanks the heavens for it — because he doesn’t have to call 911 and file a missing persons report for his roommate, of course, and also because he was just about to decide what to jack off to and doesn’t trust his judgment enough to not have it be something regrettable. 

“You’re back _already?_ ” he says when he walks back into the living room, his hair still wet, exaggeratedly pointing his finger at a nonexistent watch on his wrist. Sara flips him off. She’s sprawled out on the couch, wearing a shirt that has been missing from his closet for a couple of months and that he was pretty certain he was never going to see again. 

“Well, seems like your evening was successful, at least.”

“It was splendid. You see, I’m the one with the anatomy books, but she—”

She does a very elaborate and slightly scary gesture, and Ryan winces. “I am begging you.”

She laughs. “I’m kidding, man. I don’t kiss and tell. Well, anyway. My date was great, thanks for asking, how was yours?”

“I— Dear God, stop.”

Sara shrugs, still grinning. “Okay. Soz.”

He rubs his hair with his towel and hangs it over the back of a kitchen chair, catches the glare in Sara’s eyes and scrambles to bring it back into the bathroom instead. “It was alright,” he attempts when he comes back, he figures that sounds disinterested enough, “we watched Singin’ in the Rain.”

She raises a brow. “Of course.”

He decides to ignore that and instead cuts straight to the awful, awful chase. He figures there’s no point in not bringing it up, and anyway — keeping secrets would somehow imply there are big things at stake, which there definitely aren’t, no sir. “I think, uh, he asked me… on an… actual date, though?” he finally lets out. The realization had washed over him while he was in the car last night, making him go white-knuckled around the steering wheel.

“...Oh,” she says, slowly, “wow.”

“Yup.”

“Did you say yes?”

“No, I— Why would I— He said no himself before the question was even out,” Ryan says, voice a little too unsteady for his own liking, “it’s like he realized what he was doing and just kind of died inside.”

“Understandable. Are you sure, though?”

“Of… of saying no? I don’t know—”

“Jesus,” Sara sighs, “of him asking you out.”

“Oh. I mean… He told me there was a sports museum, and that he’d like to go with me, and then he started backtracking and practically kicked me out of his apartment. It was… weird. I mean, I guess it could have been a friend thing but… Urgh.”

“God. I leave you guys alone _one time_ and this shit happens.”

“Well, sorry?!”

She shakes her head. “Well. Whatcha gonna do?”

He sits down, nudges her to make more room. “I don’t know,” he says, because he truly doesn’t, “nothing, probably.”

“Yeah, because _that_ works. Ryan, I… Okay. Are you listening to me? It’s very important, and I am only saying it once.”

“Uh, okay.” 

She sits up straight to grab his face, turns his head to the side so he’s looking right at her while she speaks to him like he’s some kind of disobedient child. “Ryan. Please, for the love of all things holy, get laid. Like, honestly, at this point, I wouldn’t even be that mad if you just sucked it up and screwed Shane if you can’t find anyone else. You genuinely have my blessings. I just cannot take you moping around this place anymore acting like he is the worst person in the world when he is all you talk about. It. Is. Killing. Me. So exorcise that horny demon from your body and take your frustration out on someone or I am moving out.” 

She lets go of him. He has to hand it to her — that was pretty powerful. 

“Okay,” he murmurs, defeated, “fine.” 

“Great. I brought breakfast, by the way.”

“You’re my hero,” he says, and he means it. 

* * *

It’s New Years Eve and Ryan’s on a mission. 

It’s mostly a coincidence that it’s the Chapel again, and it means nothing that he scans the crowd for a silhouette he is certain he could pick out anywhere now. Yes, it’s been months since he ran into him here, but maybe he’s just trying to avoid him. 

Or maybe not. 

Christmas had passed without further incident, apart from the usual questions about when Ryan was finally going to bring someone home with him. “You’re almost 30,” his dad had said, and then added a comment about his hairline, all while Ryan had a mouthful of menudo and therefore couldn’t even defend himself. 

As if Ryan wasn’t aware.

And now Sara, the traitor, is spending tonight with her new flame, which is fine, and said that unless Shane was going out, she would invite him too, which isn’t fine, so Ryan very politely said no to that invitation. Both Steven and his old roommates had asked him to come to their own get-togethers as well, but instead of picking favorites and possibly upsetting someone, he’s currently leaning against the bar drinking something with a neon-yellow swirly straw in it, observing the crowd.

It’s one way to start the new year.

• • •

He’s never had a hard time getting laid when he actually _tries,_ and he does have to pathetically admit to himself that once the lanky, handsome-enough guy in the ugly patterned shirt he’s been eyeing all night follows him to the bathroom after a wink and a subtle hand motion, it’s the most comfortable and grounded he’s felt in weeks. He leans back against the stall door once he’s flicked the lock shut, smirking. 

It absolutely reeks in here, but hey — beggars, choosers, all that jazz. If anything, the anonymity and cheapness of it could be a turn-on. He’s still deciding.

“I’m Eric,” the guy says, and Ryan suppresses the urge to groan or roll his eyes or flee. He doesn’t care for formalities. 

_It ruins the illusion,_ pops into his head, a frantic, nonsensical drunken thought that he, against all odds, will remember the next day and mull over for hours.

“Ryan,” he offers, not able to come up with a fake name on the spot, and Eric smiles. “Well, Ryan,” he says, cocky in a way that just annoys him a little, “show me what you’re made of.”

He snorts but goes to his knees anyway, drunk-fumbles with the guy’s zipper until he gently bats Ryan’s hand away to do it himself.

Once the guy got his pants around his ankles, Ryan gets straight to business. He’s obviously not able to do his best, being tequila-doused and also slightly unimpressed with what the guy is (or rather, isn’t) packing — which again, makes him think that clichés kind of suck, Eric is definitely around 6’3” and that reminds him that appearances can be deceiving and tall men don’t all have nice dicks, and _that_ means that Ryan may be disappointed in the future if he ever plans to hook up with someone tall again, not like he’s got anyone in mind — but the guy seems pleased.

“God, look at you,” he says, voice low, “so good.”

He goes on and on — about Ryan’s mouth and how he saw Ryan looking at him all night and _I bet you’re loving this._ And Ryan’s not opposed to dirty talk — hell, if it’s the right person saying the right things in the right way, it’s one of his favorite things — but this just makes him cringe. He pulls off, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m… Listen, I’m sorry,” he says, voice slightly slurred and not sorry at all, “can you, uh. I can’t concentrate when you’re talking the whole time.”

As if he’s down here taking a math exam instead of sucking mediocre dick.

He looks up, making actual eye contact for the first time tonight. Eric’s staring back like Ryan just told him his favorite hobby is roadkill taxidermy. “Uh,” he finally says once he’s realized Ryan isn’t joking, “I guess?”

To his credit, he does shut up after that, but it still feels all wrong. Ryan’s very aware that it’s just not what he was actually looking for. He tries to think of an ex-boyfriend, or any other hook-up, but that won’t do it for him either, and so he just thinks of nothing at all. 

It doesn’t take long to finish the guy off, which he does, of course — he’s not a quitter, not in this department — but when he’s stood up again and is greeted with a satisfied smile and a “Well, your turn now,” he just shakes his head, waves him off. “I’m good,” he says, “trust me, man.”

“Fuck,” Eric says, voice leery, “did you come in your pants sucking me off? That’s so hot.”

He’s not even hard, but he guesses he can give the guy the satisfaction. He wipes his sticky hand on his own jeans (not the biggest regret he will have in the morning) and offers an apologetic smile, and off he goes to let someone else buy him a drink or two and then go home. 

He can’t wait to brush his fucking teeth.

• • •

Because God or the devil or whoever else is in charge seems to be holding a huge, nasty grudge against him, he leaves his room at 1pm the next day feeling very much like he got hit by the wrong kind of semi just to find Shane on their couch, very enthralled in what appears to be a documentary of some kind.

“What,” he just says, frozen on the spot.

“Oh, good morning.”

Chipper as ever. Ryan can feel his headache getting worse.

“Hi. Uh.”

“Sara’s in the shower.”

“Uh. Okay. How did, uh—”

“Oh, I drove her home. I contained myself for once last night. Sad you weren’t there, we had a good time. Her girlfriend’s lovely. Happy new year, by the way.”

Ryan grits his teeth. “Okay, yeah. Happy new year. Uh, whatcha watching?”

“Ancient Aliens rerun. There’s only about 10 minutes of this one left, but it’s the Mayan conspiracy one, so, worth a watch.”

He has no other choice but to sit down next to him once he’s popped an ibuprofen, because you don’t just miss out on the lovely, lovely garbage that is Ancient Aliens. Once the episode is over, he puts the TV on mute so Shane can go on a little about King Pakal and his little rocketship, only briefly interrupted by Sara emerging from the bathroom and taking off a couple minutes later to get food for them all. 

It somehow devolves into a 10-minute dramatic retelling of the Benjamin Franklin sex cult story — which is a real thing, apparently — incuding crude gestures and all. 

To Shane’s credit, it’s entertaining like his strange little stories always are, as is the way his eyes sparkle when he tells them. Despite being on the verge of starving, Ryan feels almost disappointed when Sara interrupts them again, this time by tossing each of them a bag of food. The whole experience is only mildly soured by the fact that Ryan is so very, very aware of himself — wearing ratty sweatpants and an old tank top and probably looking disgustingly unwashed and hungover, wolfing down what is very likely the greasiest bacon sandwich mankind has ever seen.

All while Shane’s sitting there in his immaculately ironed shirt and jeans and his stupid dress shoes, dipping carrot sticks into hummus, now engaged in a conversation about art heists with Sara.

It’s not like he thinks less of himself. He’s very fine with the way things are. It’s just that if Shane really asked him out — the more he considers it, the more absurd it seems — Ryan has absolutely no idea why. Would he want to deal with this? Could he really look at Ryan of all people and see him as someone to go to a _museum_ with? 

Sports museum, but still, it’s nuts.

“Hey,” Sara says, just as Ryan is halfway through imagining how terrible a date with him would go — he has a vision of them ending up at that pie place and fighting over the pronunciation of the word pecan — “earth to Ryan. Whatcha thinkin about?”

He shrugs, says, “Dunno,” around a mouthful of food, and Shane smiles.

Like maybe he does know.

* * *

The Base Bathroom Blowjob Incident — which is what Sara would probably call it, had he told her more details — despite being meaningless and maybe in the bottom 10% of drunk lays, at least has the effect of putting him back on track of his quest of What He Is Really Looking For. And while going out is not something he favors over spending a nice, relaxing evening with his best friend and eating whatever vegan shit Shane gave them — Sara’s busy a lot, both with her classes and her new girl.

(Ryan’s met her a couple times, but when they hang out, it’s usually Sara going to her place rather than bringing her home. She lives alone save for a bunch of gerbils, which Ryan had to look up online. Seeing the cute little creatures just made him think of Shane’s cat, which made him think of Shane, which made him close Google Images in frustration and pull up one of his shitty dating apps again.)

He hasn’t gotten desperate enough to actually message anyone back on there, but it may be time for that soon. Planning his lessons doesn’t take up too much time and the gym also only serves as a lukewarm distraction, really, it doesn’t remove the itch, and Ryan realizes that if he doesn’t get his dick wet again soon, he may die.

He tries to go for coffee with a guy he hooked up a couple of times with — months ago when Shane wasn’t a concern yet — but ends up calling him the wrong name the entire time, something he only finds out when he gets a text telling him _First of all, my name is David._ (which, come on, is not that far off from Daniel. It’s not Ryan’s fault he was saved in his phone as “Grindr Guy 8/10 lay” and he had to guess. Who needs to know names anyway?) and a second one stating _Also, I can't believe I have to tell you this and its probably a waste but next time you're on a date with someone maybe don’t spend half of it talking about your coworker? Seriously gross. It’s very obvious you're in your feelings so please sort this out._

So Ryan decides to do the only reasonable thing and sort it out. 

* * *

“Oh, Ryan. You cannot be serious.”

“What? It’s reasonable.”

“It is _not —_ you know, the useless lesbian trope is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of. You are driving me insane.”

“What? I’m not useless. I’m taking action now.”

She very aggressively scrubs a plate, then shoves it into his hands so he can dry it. She’s onto cutlery now, and he’s a little scared he will leave this room on a stretcher, fatally wounded with a butter knife.

“Have you ever considered what’s gonna happen if he says yes? You’re just gonna reject him again?”

“Well. _No,_ because he’s not gonna say yes. But I need to hear it to believe it. And then I’ll, I don’t know, find a boyfriend and stop annoying you.”

“You’re gonna sound like you wanted it to be a yes. Just let it go. What difference does it make if it was a date or not?”

He sighs. “Well, I— I just have to know. I just don’t get why he’d— Why would he be into me? Not like I’ve been sending him signals.” 

“Hmm.”

“What? You know something I don’t?”

“Ryan, I don’t _know._ I don’t _care._ I’m not your middleman. But he hasn’t talked to me about it. Which should be your first red flag. Or, well, green flag, whatever you want the outcome to be. Why are you going over there in the first place? Y’all can’t text each other this shit?”

“I just… I don’t know. Maybe I just wanna watch a movie with a— with an acquaintance.”

She sets the last dish aside and shakes her hands to get rid of some excess water before she dries her hands. Some droplets hit him, definitely on purpose. 

“Fine,” she says, “I’ll text Mari if she wants to hang this weekend, then, and you go figure your shit out.” 

“Great. Thanks.”

“Just don’t break his heart.”

“I’ll try.”

“And don’t get your heart broken.” 

He snorts, but it’s humorless.

* * *

Friday night and he’s standing in front of Shane’s door fidgeting, staring at the almost immaculate white paint for an entire minute before actually ringing his doorbell.

(It’s one of those that don’t actually sound like a doorbell, rather a soft arrangement of tones, as to not disturb the inhabitants. He hates it.)

He _already_ regrets this.

He regrets it more when Shane opens the door and says, “Ryan!”, stepping forward in a swift motion as if to hug him and then taking a step back again, like he’s realized.

Ryan wishes he’d just done it instead of making it awkward, but then again, he’s here to make matters way, way worse, and so he closes the door behind him and says nothing. 

He follows him into his kitchen. “You’re… on time. I wasn’t expecting you yet. I was right in the middle of something.”

 _Something_ is making batter, apparently.

“Again with the pot brownies? Tch tch tch.”

Shane huffs out a laugh and tilts the bowl so Ryan can see inside. “It’s blueberry pancakes. Hope you like ‘em, ‘cause you’re right in time for whisking.”

Ryan does like them, and so he has no other choice but to whisk. 

“I’m… not actually here just to hang out,” he says, just to get it out there as soon as possible while his head is still lowered to stare at the batter, “I kinda… just wanna talk. Well, not want to, I just… We have to talk. Can we talk.”

“Um, alright. The phone?”

“I’m not sure I wouldn’t have just hung up on you — or you on me — so I thought… It would only be fair. So here goes nothing, um, the other day…”

He trails off, trying to sort his words in an order that doesn’t sound too— well, too invested, but he’s at a loss, takes a moment too long. When he looks up, Shane, who in all probability could’ve been a detective in another life, gives him a half-smile. “Ah,” he says, “here comes the part where you finally ask me what that sports museum thing was all about, huh.”

Ryan freezes.

Shane raises an eyebrow, expectantly. “Come on. What else is there?”

Ryan clears his throat. “Okay, well, yeah. What _was_ it all about?”

Shane sighs and plucks the bowl out of Ryan’s hands. “Let’s make these bad boys, first, okay? Then we can talk.”

• • •

Food on their plates and Ryan’s shirt full of batter, they retreat around the kitchen island into the living room, Shane onto the couch where Obi is rolled up into a perfect circle, and Ryan to the vintage little dinner table at what he deems a safe distance.

Safe for what, he’s not sure. 

They eat in complete silence, which is just about the most dreadful thing in the world, and once Ryan has come back from discarding his plate into the sink and ready to open his mouth and ruin this entire evening, Shane holds up a hand. “Okay, me first. I’ll just explain myself.”

“Alright.”

“You wanna know something funny?”

Not really. “Sure.”

Shane chuckles, in a way that indicates he doesn’t actually think it’s all that hilarious. He shakes his head as he says, quietly, “You know, when I first met you… I mean, the first couple of weeks… I really thought you had a crush on me.”

Ryan lets that sink in for a couple seconds. 

“Uh,” he retorts, intelligently.

“‘Cause you were… just weird. Really fucking weird. And I thought, wow, he’s _awful_ at this. And I was waiting for you to come around and _say_ something, but you just… and you know, when I… when I asked if you wanted to go to that thing with me, it was because I had convinced myself you _didn’t_ like me, and I wasn’t super serious about it, because I thought you wouldn’t — but then I thought, fuck, what if he _used to?_ What if the reason he’s been like this is because he’s trying to get over it? And that’s why I freaked out. Because either option was terrible. Hey, imagine asking someone who used to have a crush on you on a date. Sucks.”

Ryan stares down at the ugly tablecloth on Shane’s table. Could be a cleaning rag. Ryan wonders if it would be bad timing to point that out. Probably.

“Well,” he says instead, “I can solemnly say that I did not have a crush on you.” 

“Cool, cool. Great that’s settled.” 

A beat of silence, and when he looks up, Shane’s studying him from afar. “And you don’t, now, right?”

“Um. What?” 

He knows what the question is, but he’s stalling. He’s gonna have a perfectly good answer to this. A very steady _Nope,_ nothing more, that’ll show him, because, really, who does he think he—

“You didn’t have a crush on me then, and you don’t have one now, do you, Ryan?”

He really is a fucking smartass, but he doesn’t sound like he’s trying to prove something here or trip him up. It’s a genuine question, like he really cares, and that’s why Ryan’s “Uh, no,” comes out unsteady, and because Shane doesn’t really look convinced after that, he stutters out a “definitely not,” for good measure. 

Nailed it.

“Okay. Well, you’re kind of making me nervous staring at me from over there, so are you going to come over here?” 

Not like that could make matters worse.

He’s almost desperately hoping his reflexes to work in his favor and for his legs to take off into the other direction, using all that stamina he’s been accumulating over the years to just run home and never look back. Or maybe he’s just expecting weak knees.

Either way, it just so happens that he, steadily and determined, crosses the few feet to sit on the couch. He doesn’t know what to expect — he doesn’t know what he wants, or what he _wants_ to want — and so he just decides to let Shane lead.

He can still always bolt.

“Well,” Shane says, “here we are.”

Ryan swallows, hard. “Yeah. Here we are, and I am... confused.”

“Are you, though? Because I don’t think you are. You’re not stupid, Ryan. Just…”

“A moron?”

There’s a smile growing on Shane’s face. “I was gonna say _oaf,_ but sure, moron works too.”

It’s not meant to be malicious at all — if anything, it sounds a little _enamored —_ and Ryan can’t argue with it either way, so he just nods, very much aware of how flushed his face must be. 

“Let’s put it this way. You’re very oblivious. To a lot of things.”

Maybe he’s right, because up until right now, Ryan hadn’t noticed how close they were actually sitting. How close to Shane Ryan voluntarily sat down.

He blinks.

“Really, it’s horrible to witness. You have no self-awareness. You’re… God, Ryan.”

He’s still just staring. His eyes keep flicking down to Shane’s lips, and he hopes Shane doesn’t notice and interprets it wrong, sees things that aren’t there. That would suck. It’s just… his mouth is very pink and cute and kissable. That doesn’t mean Ryan wants to kiss him. Just… he’s _kissable._ Objectively.

Shane smiles wider, to the point where his eyes crinkle.

Maybe Ryan does want to kiss him a little bit.

There are a million reasons why he shouldn’t, and the fact that they're coworkers doesn’t even make the top 5. Nuisance, he reminds himself. Can genuinely be annoying as fuck. Wears terrible shirts. Is actually wearing a terrible shirt right now. Could maybe name three NBA teams off the top of his head. Doesn’t own a single tie that’s only one color. Is currently wearing socks with flamingos on them. He’s—

“Shane,” he says for no particular reason, except that he wants to, maybe to reassure himself that yeah, this is Shane, it’s _Shane,_ Shane Alexander Madej, his colleague and burden and currently leaning in just enough for it to be obvious. A done deal.

Ryan swallows, mouth dry, and Shane’s still looking at him like he’s harboring an answer to a question Ryan didn’t ask him.

Not out loud, at least.

“Uh, hey,” Shane says, breaking the silence, breaking his inhibitions, because Ryan finds himself whispering a shaky little “Hi,” back, leaning in, and Shane meets him halfway.

His first thought, of course, is _shit._ His second is _well, I’ve finally found a way to shut him up._ After that, he doesn’t really think, preoccupied with taking in the way Shane’s lips move against his, the soft, happy sigh he lets out when Ryan’s hand finds his hair, winds strands around his fingers. 

It’s not a gentle, shy kiss — it was never going to happen that way — it’s a greedy one, the kind you share when you’re not sure you will ever see the person again. 

Their first kiss, and it’s desperate like a goodbye kiss. 

It’s been too fucking long since he’s kissed anyone. That’s really why he’s doing this. That’s why any of this is happening, and this’ll be over soon, and he’ll feel better about himself. 

Genuine connection is what he was looking for, apparently, not just empty fucks, and it’s here now. It’s just that, extending the metaphor, he’s dialed the wrong number. May as well enjoy the conversation, though, and it turns out making out with Shane is pretty great. He’s bony, but soft where it counts — his lips, his hair, and the sound he makes when Ryan puts a hand on his chest and pushes him back, gets on top of him. 

“God, this is _dumb,_ ” Shane says, but he sounds nowhere like he has any intention to stop this, his voice giddy, and Ryan kisses him again to stop him from saying more. Deeper, desperate, more demanding this time, and when Ryan grinds down against him ever-so-slightly, Shane lets out a noise that makes Ryan’s entire body flood with want.

“Thought you said you had morals,” he says, and Shane giggles — a grating sound in any other context but against Ryan’s lips, it’s really good. 

“I lied.” 

“Good.” 

And — fuck it. May as well go all the way, now that the cards are on the table, take it further to make sure neither of them feel like they’re missing out and, God forbid, decide to do anything like this ever again. It’s one stupid mistake. They’ll move past this.

He sneaks a hand down, finds exactly what he was expecting, and when he slowly, almost carefully puts some pressure against Shane’s half-hard dick, Shane makes another really good sound. He hopes he gets some more out of him during the course of this, to have something to remember.

Shane scoots up a little so Ryan’s practically in his lap, which is really, really good, and it also makes it easier to pop two of Shane’s shirt buttons open with one hand. 

There’s a faded hickey on Shane’s clavicle. The sight of it makes something flare up in Ryan’s chest, something disproportionately ugly, as if he didn’t suck a stranger’s dick in a bathroom less than two weeks ago, as if Shane’s his _anything._ It’s all the incentive he needs to kiss Shane again, with way more intent this time, and practically shove his hands down his pants.

“Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, hey, hold on.” There’s a hand on his chest, then, very gently and without a doubt unintentionally pressing down right where his heart is, creating some more distance where there was only shared breath a second ago. “Listen, I don’t generally hook up with people in front of the cat,” Shane says, smiling in that dazed way you enter during a nice make-out session, and the microscopic part of Ryan’s brain that is still working thinks, _I did that,_ “so, uh, we either take this to my bedroom or we, uh, we don’t if that’s… too much.”

Ryan stares. 

“I just… have stuff in my room. And we can lock Obi out. Also, we don’t have to turn the Professor around, so, uh, three birds, one stone, buddy.”

Shane’s frantic about this, whereas Ryan’s frozen. 

Because, yes, sure, this is fun and he was looking forward to some action but there is so much intent in taking it to Shane’s bedroom. Some rushed frottage on a couch, sure, that could happen to anyone. But the mere idea of getting up and following Shane into his bedroom with the entire purpose of hooking up feels like a conscious decision instead of an accident. 

It feels serious, somehow.

Ryan can’t deal with serious. Not with Shane. Not like this.

Never like this.

“I, uh… I think I’m gonna decline.”

“Alright.”

They sit up, and when Ryan, after what feels like minutes of hot, hot shame dares himself to look at Shane, he’s readjusting his stupid hawaiian shirt with a cryptic little smile on his face. He doesn’t even look bothered. Why the fuck doesn’t he look bothered? He _should_ be bothered. He’s the one who this should mean something to, but Ryan’s the one whose own words taste sour now. He clears his throat, mentally wishing he could go a couple minutes back in time to make another, worse choice.

Anything would be better than not managing to get under Shane’s skin for once.

“Do you, uh. Do you wanna go, or are we still doing the movie thing?” Shane pipes up after a while.

“Yeah, I… Why not, man.”

Ryan wants nothing more than to leave, but bolting would make him a coward. Worse, a coward who cares enough to leave Shane’s place like he committed a crime.

“It’s no big deal, by the way,” Shane says once he’s popped a DVD into the player. Ryan has no idea what they’re even watching. He’s kind of stuck on the fact that it should be a big deal to Shane, though. Why isn’t it?

“And I think it goes without saying, that, uh,” Shane continues, doing the zipping-up-the-mouth gesture, and Ryan nods. 

Shane continues looking at him for a couple of seconds, and Ryan wishes he would detect a hint of bashfulness, upset, anything in his expression. Instead, what he gets is a small apologetic smile, as if Shane has anything to be sorry for except, well, being annoying and dressing strange and turning Ryan’s entire world upside down. You know, mundane stuff.

Ryan manages a smile back and then averts his eyes from him to focus on whatever they’re watching. 

They don’t talk much after that. 

• • •

In his Uber back home, he thinks about how absurd it would have been to kiss Shane goodbye at the door, maybe just to fuck with him, and digs his fingernails so hard into his thigh it hurts.


	5. Chapter 5

Days pass, and he doesn’t tell Sara. He thinks about it, of course — during breakfast, on the way to school, sitting in their living room while she’s drawing — but he can’t. Saying it out loud would provide the situation with weight, bestow significance or meaning upon it, and he wouldn’t know how to word it, anyway.

“I kissed Shane” is entirely too vague.

“I kissed Shane and I could’ve taken it further, but I didn’t” is still too vague, especially for one Sara Rubin, PhD. He can imagine it clearly, her head tilted while she squints at him and stirs her tea: _What, for the love of all that is holy, are you saying right now._

“I kissed Shane and I could’ve taken it further, but I didn’t. I wanted him so bad, though, that when I came home, I jerked off thinking about him playing with my hair and came so hard I almost blacked out. I think I’m also going to give up porn entirely because there’s not enough amateur footage of tall skinny guys with glasses being railed, especially not by shorter guys, and there’s not much content the other way around, either. Do you think there might be a market for that? Is there an email for complaints? Also, would you mind rolling up a newspaper and whacking me on the noggin with it like one would with a misbehaving dog?” would be an accurate, if still highly censored version. A bit of a mouthful, though.

So he says nothing, and thinks a lot. 

• • •

Two weeks pass, and every once in a while, Shane catches Ryan’s eye and smiles, something indiscernible on his face, and like magic, Ryan smiles back without even really wanting to. 

He thinks about talking to him, and never does, and he thinks about texting him, and almost does. He wonders if sometimes Shane is reading through a conversation at the same time Ryan is typing his apologies, his propositions; if he can see the dot-dot-dot that appears on his screen like a heartbeat, just for it to flatline again. 

• • •

Once a month has passed, he has long regressed back to whatever he was doing before that he knows for sure isn’t going to pay off. Besides school and working out, most of his time is now punctuated by a text to an old hookup, a drink at a bar, a nod in the gym showers.

It’s meaningless, and that’s what makes it great. 

It’s not like he fucks everybody who quite literally falls into his lap, but he doesn’t care about finding someone special either, not at all. Sometimes, in the right light, he will look at the guy he spent a night or half an hour with and think, _this could be something worthwhile, if only you tried,_ and maybe that’s why he prefers to do it in the dark, anyway.

* * *

“...so they hoped to catch the Romans with a night raid. This time, they were more prepared, you know. They utilized wicker hurdles to bypass the deadly pit traps, ladders to cross the trenches, and grappling hooks — grappling hooks, can you believe that! — to tear away the sharpened sticks on Caesar’s walls. All while showering the Romans with arrows to keep their forces paralyzed. Those who scaled the walls were—”

So maybe Ryan came home and gave Shane nothing more than a little _Remember When We Almost Fucked?-_ nod before hiding in his room, and maybe now, Ryan’s got his music turned all the way down and is standing close to his wall to hear him babbling on and on about history. Maybe very close. Maybe as close as he can get without holding a clichéd, desperate ear to it.

He’s not even sure what the topic is. Just.

For sure, he could just walk out and sit on the couch. Or on the chair far away from it. Or do literally anything else besides this pining bullshit. But then again, there’s no point in leaving his room if he can just stand here and imagine the scene — Shane, sitting there, one leg swung over the other, the way his eyes sparkle behind the glasses he keeps having to push back up his nose because he’s talking so animatedly, those mannerisms that used to leave Ryan remarkably irritated and annoyed just leaving him wanting, wanting, wanting. 

* * *

It’s one of those classic middle of the week evenings — Sara’s retreated into her room after they flipped through Netflix together and couldn’t find anything worthwhile for the night, and so he’s laying on his back, staring at his phone and looking for a new pointless flirt. 

God, he really should take up knitting. Maybe learn a dead language. 

For now, though, a couple bad bios in, it’s time to do that incredibly desperate dangerous thing that always comes back to bite him in the ass — not in a good way, mind you — where he just kind of looks at the picture and swipes right on anyone he’d as much as _consider_ fucking on first glance. He can weed out the really bad ones later, if they even like him back, that is.

And to be fair, he’s set stricter preferences in terms of proximity and height, so if it fails, it’ll at least be because of personality or dick size, whichever Ryan uncovers first. 

Cute twink holding a dog — swipe right. Tall, dark and handsome with lip piercing — right. Guy with a MAGA hat — left. Guy in a hideous plaid shirt cuddling a cat — right. Nice jawline, sadly wearing a cop uniform — left. And so on, left, right, right, left, until he gets tired of it after a couple minutes, which is at least a sign that he hasn’t completely lost it. 

Once he’s come back from microwaving some food, the little envelope that indicates incoming messages has shown up at the top of his screen. He sits down on his bed, scrolling through the previews with one hand while shoveling basmati into his mouth with the other. 

**_xxXChiefDaddyXxx_ ** _sent a message!_

_Hi sexy :)_

Accompanied by the little camera symbol that tells him there is a picture attached to the message, and yeah, no. He’s not in the mood to look at a dick right now. Later, maybe, when he’s not eating.

 **_craig47245848_ ** _sent a message!_

_bit.ly/2HiyigU SEE MY TIGHT, HOT [...]_

Great. Maybe he _should_ look at the profiles more closely, and with his glasses on. He marks the message as spam and moves on to what he hopes is tight and hot but not, well, a virus. 

**_historynerd86_ ** _sent a message!_

_Hi! I added you back because you [...]_

Username is terrible, but whatever. Not like he’s here to get married, and so he smiles to himself and accepts the request. Third time’s the charm, right? 

**historynerd86:** _Hi! I added you back because you can’t message people on this thing without matching with them._

 **historynerd86:** _But, wow! Awkward. I’m assuming that wasn’t on purpose...?_

He looks more closely at the little portrait in the top left corner of the conversation and mutters, “Oh, come _on,_ ” to himself, clicks on the icon to go to his profile, and sure enough, of _course_ it’s him. It’s an older picture, and he’s wearing different glasses and a shirt Ryan’s never seen, but still, how did Ryan not notice?

> Chicago born and raised. I am NOT looking for friends or a long term relationship on here and will report accounts that “slide into my DMs” for these types of things for trolling. If you’re just looking for fun, I’m your guy.
> 
> PS: I am 6’4” and it therefore takes a certain size to really impress me, but you are very welcome to send me a picture of “you” if you think I can handle it, baby! *wink*

Ryan swallows, hard.

“Oh, _fuck_ me,” he groans, to himself and himself only, of course.

After what feels like a decade of typing, another message alert pops up.

 **historynerd86** **:** _If it was, you’re showing me some seriously mixed messages. I don’t really know what to think of that. And I won’t lie,_ _I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I think we both know that starting something of this sort would be incredibly foolish, especially considering our work environment. I’m just saying... It would be really risky._

He’s typing something else.

It’s all the more initiative for Ryan to close the app, toss his phone aside, and summon all the willpower it takes not to grab his pillow and scream into it for half an hour. 

And then some.

• • •

By the time Sara opens her door — a look on her face like she is exactly one conversation away from burying his body in the closest desert — Ryan’s knuckles hurt from almost a full minute of relentless, frustrated knocking. 

“Jeez, I had headphones in. _What_ is going _on?”_

“Argh! It’s, uh, something dumb happened.”

She shoves him aside to peek into her corner of the living room and then breathes a sigh of relief, leaning back against the doorframe. “Well, you didn’t set anything on fire this time, so…” 

Ryan runs a hand over his face, not daring to make eye contact. “Well, I, just, uh, I liked Shane on Flamr? Like, accidentally, but—”

“...Flamr.”

“ _Yes—_ ”

“Ryan, the last guy you fucked off Flamr broke your bed frame and stole 50 bucks. Out of _my_ wallet! ...Hold on, like, Shane? As in, our Shane?”

“Our— It was an accident! I mean, you know that horny-induced trance you enter on dating apps where you just kinda give up and then just swipe right on _anyone_ ”—She nods, a somber look on her face— “and so I, you know, just saw a, a _guy,_ you know what’s it like”— She frowns and shakes her head at that— “and I was like, great, I’m gonna climb that like a tree, but, you know, turns out… there’s not gonna be any climbing.”

“Did he say that?”

“Wh— Kind of? I mean, he said I’m hot, just that it probably shouldn’t happen. Which is true, so.”

She raises a brow. “He… called you hot.”

“Don’t be mean.”

“No, I mean… You’re attractive, shut up. I guess I’m just astounded by Shane using a hook-up app at all? He’s never mentioned any. Seems more like an anonymous love letter kind of guy. But, like, a dirty love letter. You know, classy sexting, if anything.”

“Yeah. I… guess. _Classy._ His Flamr bio says he’s into big dicks.”

“Wow. Too bad for you.”

“What— shut up.”

She laughs and shoulders her way past him. “You want tea?”

“I don’t care. I just— What do I do now?”

“I don’t knooooow,” Sara sing-songs on the way to the kitchen, “wanna know how well my relationship is going?”

“No!” 

“Too bad, I’ll tell you anyway. Not my fault you can’t get laid.” 

“I _am_ getting laid!”

“Not by the right people, it seems,” she says, once he’s followed her so they can stop yelling at each other from across the apartment like some sort of straight couple, “you’re all… tense.”

She turns around, then, just as he’s about to defend himself and mention just how well he’s getting laid and how very not frustrated he is, thank you very much—

“Guess it’s really gnawing on you that you didn’t stay, huh.”

“I... What. How do you—”

She shakes her head. “He told me, stupid. Like, three minutes after you fled the premises. Great work, by the way. Classic Bergara move. I’m not mad you didn’t tell me, by the way, I wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it, either.” 

He’s not sure who he feels most betrayed by right now. In all honesty, he can’t blame either of them. 

“So, what else did he say?”

Funnily enough, he was going to ask the same thing. 

“I don’t know. I haven’t read the last thing he sent. You read it. I can’t look at it.”

She has sighed and grabbed his phone before the full sentence is even out, typing his passcode in. “Come on, Ryan, _five_ separate hookup apps?”

“Can you _please_ just—“

She’s already on it, waving her hand to shut him up. “Okay, here goes. New message from… historynerd86. Jesus, I wish I could make fun of him for that, but I guess that’s your job, uh, RimshotRyan?”

“It’s a basketball reference.”

She clicks her tongue. “Hmm. Bet the fellas love it.”

“Shut up. Just read it.”

“Uh, okay. Here goes. _That being said, I have always been a risk taker, and I would be lying if I told you that I don’t find you incredibly attractive, or that I don’t want this._ That’s it.”

Ryan processes that for a second. Once she’s made fun of him for pictures on his profile (“We get it, you work out”), she hands him his phone back, and after he’s shoved it into his pocket he groans, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I hate my life.”

“Hey, don’t be like that. As the saying goes... the only thing standing in the way of a good, meaningful dicking is your own fear.”

He looks at her, exasperated. “I don’t think that’s how it goes.” 

“Okay. Well, here’s another. You’ve made your bed, the metaphorical bed being Shane. Now lie in it.”

“That— makes no sense.” 

“Neither do you,” she says, “so. I mean, it’s your life, so either bang it out or don’t, but be clear about it this time, set boundaries. You know, don’t bullshit or lead him on, just tell him what you want.”

He manages a smile. “...What I really, really want?”

She rolls her eyes, then smirks back, and messes up his hair on the way out. “Zig-a-zig-ah, baby.”

• • •

It takes him a beer and an embarrassingly short jerk-off session to muster up the courage to unlock his phone, and another 7 minutes of blankly staring at the last texts they exchanged (a smoothie recipe) for him to actually send a new one.

 **(you, 8:48pm)** **  
**God I’m so fucking sorry this is embarrassing

 **(you, 8:50pm)** **  
**I wasn’t wearing glasses.

 **(madej, 9:03pm)** **  
**I figured.

 **(madej, 9:04pm)** **  
**It’s kinda funny, though. Like the universe is trying to tell us something!

Ryan winces. 

**(madej, 9:06pm)** **  
**Sorry. Out of line, maybe. A myriad of reasons why this shouldn’t happen. I know, you know. It’s a nice fantasy. It can stay just that.

He imagines him pacing, imagines him sitting on his awful couch, imagines him laying on a bed Ryan has never seen. Is he calm? Is he frantic? Is he aware of how much Ryan cares about that for some reason? 

**(you, 9:08pm)** **  
**Yeah. Gotta say that i kind of admire how straight forward your bio is.

Dangerous territory. If he had one more beer, he’d offer to show Shane his dick, just as friends or whatever they are now, to see if he deems it acceptable, just in theory.

 **(you, 9:09pm)** **  
**It works for me! And come on, you. At least mine doesn’t have emojis in it.

That one makes him smile. He chews on his lip. 

**(you, 9:13pm)** **  
**Hey, the right emojis can drive a guy wild

 **(madej, 9:16pm)** **  
**Can they, now? Guess I’ll take that advice next time I hit someone up that I really like.

That feels like a punch to the gut, somehow, but the hypocrisy of feeling, what, _betrayed?_ It’s not lost on him. 

He feels like their conversation may as well end there, but changes his mind once he’s brushed his teeth, the pit in his stomach still there. 

**(you, 9:40pm)** **  
**Sorry again.

 **(madej, 9:42pm)** **  
**It’s okay. As I said. Bad idea.

 **(madej, 9:43pm)**  
Obi says “Good night!” by the way.  
 _[img_3823.jpg]_

It is, of course, not just a picture of Obi, but of both of them together. Shane looks sleepy. Shane looks really fucking cute. Ryan feels like under other circumstances and if they were entirely different people, Ryan would feel compelled to comment “Aww,” or something else gay. 

And now that he’s thought that, _not_ doing it is weird. 

**(you, 9:49pm)** **  
**Aww.

 **(madej, 10:02pm)**  
See you tomorrow, Ryan.

 **(madej, 10:13pm)**  
Okay, sorry, I set up the joke already, I may as well make it.

 **(madej, 10:20pm)** **  
**🥺 🍆 😏 👉 👌 💋 👺 👅

 **(you, 10:25pm)** **  
**I am begging you to stop

 **(you, 10:25pm)** **  
**Did it really take you 7 minutes to type these

 **(madej, 10:27pm)**  
GOOD NIGHT!

* * *

Despite not really talking besides hellos and goodbyes and did-you-see-Halloween’s-on-tonights (which would have been a blessing, months ago), they still do that stupid thing where Shane will sneak him a snack labeled something ridiculous like _moo free,_ and Ryan will rate it by holding up his hand, one finger being the worst, five the best.

It’s almost always a five.

To be fair, they’re good.

And it’s what makes Shane smile the most.

* * *

“So, uh, how are... things going?”

They’ve crossed work anecdotes and muscle gains off the list of things to talk about during the course of the afternoon, so he knows this must be about his love life. Or lack thereof, as Steven probably assumes. And would be right about. He takes a sip of what must be the stalest La Croix he has ever tasted and directs his attention fully to the TV screen where Steven is kicking his ass on Mario Kart just like Ryan kicked his ass on the court earlier.

“Pfft,” he says, “you know.”

He drives over a banana peel, of course, slides right from rank 5 into rank 7, and he reaches out to punch Steven in the shoulder a little. Steven doesn’t react, instead mumbling, “I mean… I mean, I don’t, that’s why I’m asking, Ryan.”

“You know how it goes. I get a number, I delete a number, life goes on.”

When he glances to the side, Steven’s frowning. “So. Nobody special?”

Ryan sighs, sends a green shell out into nowhere, and too much time passes before he says, “Isn’t there always?”

Steven doesn’t really have an answer to that, it seems. He just says, “Man, Ryan,” and somehow exactly hits the nail on the head with that.

Ryan, of course, loses the race. 

* * *

He lasts four days, an hour and 12 minutes before he decides enough is enough. The stolen glances, the half-smiles, the stupid fucking snacks — it’s the epitome of moving in circles, and Ryan’s getting dizzy. And somehow, it’s the awful faculty room brew that ultimately does it.

It’s been a thing — that sometimes, when Shane arrives earlier than he and Sara do, there is a coffee waiting for Ryan, a dash of oat milk and no sugars in it. Accompanied with a smile from the other end of the room by yours truly. 

It takes way too long for Ryan to realize that he doesn’t even know how Shane takes his coffee. It also makes him realize that for some reason if he’s ever wanted to know anything, it’s that.

And oh, how ironic that the longest game of chicken he has ever played is with a fucking vegan.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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He’s sitting on his bed while he listens to the unbearable sound of the dial tone, and he feels the urge to pace, his free hand twitching anxiously. It’s only his second time calling tonight, and damn him to hell if he hangs up this time.

Shane answers the phone on the third ring.

“You know,” he says as an opener, before Ryan can even yelp out whatever he had prepared to say before he heard Shane’s voice and forgot about it, “every time you get in touch with me, I have absolutely no idea what to expect.”

“Uh. Hello?”

“Hi, Ryan. I mean, it’s like… Is he going to hit me up? Is he going to ask me for a recipe? Has he found yet another way to send me mixed signals? Don’t get me wrong, it’s thrilling. Quite the hoot. But I… I need clarity at some point, Ry.”

The last bit sounds exhausted. And the direction Shane has steered the conversation into is not what Ryan was anticipating, not immediately, but he can work with the script change. Not like he doesn’t get the frustration. “I know. That’s why I’m calling, I mean. Me too. I,” he takes a deep breath that sounds wobbly and pathetic even to his own ears, “I want to. Talk about it. In person.” 

There’s a smile in Shane’s voice when he answers, after deliberating his words for a couple seconds — at least that’s what Ryan assumes he’s doing. “The kind of talk where we make out and then proceed to ignore each other for an entire month?”

“God,” Ryan says, surprised and half-laughing while his fingernails dig half-moons into his palm, “fuck you.” 

“Thought we were still deliberating that.”

He’s too fucking _witty,_ and hell, Ryan wants— 

He just _wants._

“Listen, it’s quite entertaining to listen to you breathe into your speaker and I hope you don’t take this personally,” Shane continues after a couple of seconds, “but I have to take care of my puppet because a certain feline went absolutely _Hostel_ on his innards, so.”

“So.”

“So we will talk tomorrow.”

Shane’s hung up, then.

Ryan stares at his phone for a couple seconds before he puts it aside, wishing he could do the same with his thoughts. They’re everywhere, though, and if there ever was a way to catch them all, he’s not sure there’d be a container big enough to hold them, anyway.

• • •

He finds ways to distract himself throughout the workday, and he also somehow manages to avoid Shane the entire duration of it. If that involves ducking into the restrooms at one point, then so be it. Nobody has to know.

By the time he leaves his last class, he’s already thinking about what he’s going to listen to while he sits in the car and waits for Sara, maybe he could finally start one of the podcasts Shane recommended to him a while ago— but he loses his train of thought, then, when he spots Shane waiting for him outside the doors. He’s leaning with his back against the brick wall adjacent to the gymnasium, casual, hands shoved into his pockets. He gives him a nod as a greeting, like Ryan often does. It looks jarring on him. Ryan can’t tell if he did it deliberately and or if he’s picked up on his mannerisms. 

He doesn’t know which option is worse. 

“Thought you leave at 2 on Thursdays.”

Shane laughs, overdramatically puts a hand over his heart. Ryan wonders if he used to be a theatre kid. “There he goes, knowing my in and outs. I’d get a restraining order, but I’m just too touched, really.”

“Pfft.” As if he can’t feel himself blush.

Shane looks him up and down, as if he’s waiting for him to say something. When he doesn’t, he scoffs. “Look, should I go first?” 

Ryan nods, feeling childish. 

Shane just shrugs. “The thing is, there’s not a lot to say. You know my stance on this. So see this as a final… I don’t know, Ry, see it as whatever you want it to be. I know you want it to be something. So call it a proposition, an offer, a desperate cry for attention.”

“I… Again, I’m still not sold on... God, it’s just a _bad_ idea, Shane.”

“Yup.”

“And people would freak if they found out.”

“Yup.”

“And we’d probably regret it. I mean, strike that, we will.”

 _“Yup.”_ Shane’s smiling now. Ryan thinks, for the first time — at least consciously, deliberately — that he would really, really love to kiss him again. He wonders if he will, the next time they’re alone. 

“So. What are we going to do about that?”

Shane shrugs again, seemingly untroubled, and starts walking, but he makes a gesture for Ryan to follow him. He does, of course. “It’s really your call. I’m not picky.”

“No. No, I’m not the decision making type. Every decision I made so far in regard to this sucked ass. So—“ 

Shane’s head is tilted, expectantly. He’s still smirking, not like he is waiting for Ryan to decide, more like he’s waiting for him to finally admit to himself this is a losing game. 

And, God, he is tired of pretending, he is tired of longing, he is, especially, tired of fucking other people. Additionally, he hasn’t made a colossal mistake — as opposed to just a _stupid_ one, like the rest of this has been — in a while, and he feels iffy about knuckle tattoos.

So, fine. Better a losing game than no game at all. Ryan is very much aware he would regret either decision, may as well go with the one that his dick made and not his brain. Heaven knows that one hasn’t done him any good.

“Actually, uh, alright, my God, your loss. Wanna come over tonight?”

Shane lets out a breathless little laugh that manages to make Ryan’s chest hurt more than any workout ever could. “Jesus, Ryan.”

“What?”

“Nothing, I just— Listen, I’ll be honest, with all your procrastinating bullshit, I was expecting some good ol’ _Let’s take it slow_ situation that eventually accumulates into the equivalent of a dramatic, 10 minutes long, steamy lovemaking montage on cable TV.” Ryan stares at him. “You know, the kind to cause an uproar amongst the public.”

He winks, and really, it’s horrifying how easily Shane manages to remind him of how absolutely insufferable he can be. “God, I— what? I mean. I guess we can do that, if that’s your thing. You— whatever you are talking about. But... Sara’s out tonight. Some art show thing at 8.”

“So we’re sneaking around, hm? Thrilling. _You_ could come over.”

“She has the car.” He glances around. They’ve come to a halt by the bike stands and the lot is practically empty aside from a group of students maybe a hundred feet away, but he still stage whispers the next part while Shane unlocks his bike. “And Ubering to your place feels very, you know, _dick appointment._ So. You come over.”

“Oh, because biking to your place _isn’t,_ uh, _dick appointment._ ”

“It’s more classy! Somewhat, I mean. Listen, it made sense before I said it.”

Shane shakes his head, fastens the straps of his stupid helmet. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

“Yeah. So, are you coming?” 

Shane gets on his bike, looking awkward with all those long limbs of his, and sends him a final look. “I’m quite confident you’ll manage to do that, Ryan, yeah. See you at 8.” 

Then he’s gone. 

* * *

  
By 6pm, he’s annoyed Sara to the point of being sent to his room like a toddler, and he can’t hold it against her. A gal can only take so much nervous leg-bouncing before she threatens you with amputation and kicks you out of your own living room. 

By 7pm, he’s showered and shaved and changed his outfit twice before going back to his normal day to day clothes, because he doesn’t want to look like he put too much effort in. He regrets shaving, because maybe Shane thinks the stubble is hot. 

By 8pm, he’s outside his door waiting, and he’s not sure why. It ruins the illusion of Not Caring That Much. When Shane pulls into the driveway, right on time, he can’t help the huge, easy smile on his face. He probably looks smitten. He doesn’t mind.

• • •

Shane moves in close as soon as they’re inside, but still leaves him space to move away — leaves him a choice, and Ryan makes it by not moving at all. When he gets crowded against the closed door, Ryan expects a kiss, maybe, he goes as far as getting on his tiptoes for it, but he just gets a raised brow in return, and then he gets Shane’s hand very much grabbing his dick through his shorts. Ryan yelps, so embarrassingly desperate for touch he just bucks into it immediately. 

“Hi,” Shane says, the first thing Ryan’s heard out of his mouth since he’s arrived here. His hair looks plain awful where his helmet has flattened it. Ryan still wants him so bad it hurts. 

“Can we— Okay, my room, Shane, jesus.”

Shane takes a single step back, but he doesn’t move his hand away, instead applies a bit more pressure. “Oh, _now_ you wanna go in a room?” 

He sounds mostly amused, but Ryan knows he wouldn’t bring it up, even just in passing, if there wasn’t still some bitterness attached to it. He doesn’t know how to deal with that particular emotion just yet, but decides he’ll make it up to him one way or the other. And so he says, “Shut it,” and puts a hand to Shane’s chest to give himself more space to grab him by the wrist, gently tug him into the direction of his room. 

So this is it, then.

Shane’s only wearing a light jacket, and once the door has clicked shut behind them, he shrugs it off and hangs it over Ryan’s desk chair. It makes Ryan wonder whether Shane’s the type to take off all his clothes and neatly fold them before sex, and the fact that the idea somehow doesn’t extinguish the growing flame of his arousal is terrifying. 

“I’ve never been in your room,” Shane observes.

“Well, now you have.” 

“You play the guitar?”

Ryan’s already toed his shoes off, has planted himself on his bed, and he’s not really in the mood for smalltalk. “Badly, yeah.”

Shane turns around. “Will you show me one day?”

He doesn’t sound very serious. It wouldn’t matter if he were, anyway. “I— can you just come here?” 

Ryan can, despite his smug demeanor, sense the tension radiating from him — his voice a little quieter than usual, fumbling with the hem of his shirt nervously when he sits down on the bed, feet planted on the floor, looking at him but not looking him in the eye.

“Shane,” he says, feeling bolder all of a sudden now that he knows he’s not the only frantic person in the room, “I said come here.” 

It’s like he needed that. He moves, and just like that, he’s on top of him, kneeling over him, both of them still mostly dressed. Ryan still feels naked somehow, and worse, he feels transparent, like Shane could see right through him if that’s something he wanted. 

“You’ve shaved,” he observes, and he takes his hand and brushes a knuckle over Ryan’s jawline, “I like it.”

“You do?”

“I prefer the stubble. But it’s fine.”

“I— _fine?”_

Shane chuckles. “I’m fucking with you, man. You look great.”

Ryan doesn’t really have a retort to that besides a scoff and his hands coming up Shane’s waist. He figures he’s allowed that, now.

“Of course you’re the type to wear fucking, what, basketball shorts to this,” Shane teases, and Ryan frowns. 

“They’re coming off anyway unless you’ve changed your mind, and unlike you I’m not gonna need an hour to undress.” 

Shane sits up a little, gives him room. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Menace. Ryan grins, though, and tugs his shirt off. “Fine.” 

And Shane’s soft “Fuck. Look at you.” has the exact opposite effect he must have intended it to have, because Ryan feels the need to cover up, as if he hasn’t spent years making his body look the way it does, as if he’s not proud of it. But Shane splays a hand over his chest in a touch that would probably be better described as a caress, and Ryan forgets all about it. 

“Last chance to bolt, Ryan,” he says, looking at his pecs instead of his face. Which is fine — he doesn’t need Shane to see whatever is transpiring on it right now. 

“It’s my room. If anyone’s gonna bolt, it’ll be you.”

Shane smiles. “Never.” 

He leans forward, then, and says, very casually, “Been dreaming about sucking your dick since the day we met.”

 _That_ is a lot for his brain to handle, but Ryan decides to lock it away for now. Later, maybe in a week, he will allow himself to lose sleep over it, if he manages to suppress it until then. 

Right here, right now, in the present, Shane waits for an okay. 

Ryan nods, shakily. 

Okay.

He’s not sure what he expects after that. Maybe for Shane to get straight to business, but he is slow, and he is gentle. It is, at least, not what Ryan was still expecting — or maybe hoping for. No hurried hookup in the shadows, the secret kind you don’t talk, hell, don’t even think about again.

“Let me savor this, if I may,” Shane says instead, sounding like something out of a trashy romance paperback and looking the part as well, pink lips and wild eyes, slowly trailing a hand down his chest now. Ryan doesn’t care how he does it. He doesn’t care how anything goes down anymore, just that it goes down at all, ready to jump headfirst into whatever Shane wants at this point.

It feels like torture of the best kind, the way he touches him until he finally, _finally_ gets a hand down his shorts and on his half-hard dick. At least he likes what he finds, because he leans in and breathes “God, of course you’re perfect,” right against his throat. It’s not really the kind of thing he’d ever expect to hear out of Shane’s mouth. He’s mostly turned his brain off by now, so he doesn’t think about it too much. He might go insane if he does.

“Alright, wait, I...“ Shane starts, hand still on his dick, and for a second Ryan thinks, _great, now he_ is _the one freaking out,_ but then he smiles, a little shy, maybe, if Shane Madej was a person prone to shyness. “Can you sit up? Think I wanna be on my knees for this.”

“I’ll sit up once you take that stupid shirt off.”

Shane scoffs out a, “Polite,” but he does unbutton and get rid of the thing. And not like Ryan’s paying attention, but there’s no hickeys on him this time. He hates how much that relieves him. 

When he sits on the edge of his mattress, Shane sinks down next to the bed quite gracelessly, but Ryan couldn’t give a flying fuck, the whole situation still somehow manages to be, God, so fucking hot. There’s one final thing to figure out here, though, before they ruin their entire acquaintanceship for good. “Wait, I— I’m still not sure what this whole thing is.”

“I believe most people would call it a blowjob,” Shane quips.

Ryan blinks. “You’re not funny.”

“I’m hilarious. That aside, are you okay with it being, hell, I don’t know, a trial run? We hook up, we figure out if it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.”

“What if it does?”

“I don’t know. We continue hooking up. We get married, white picket fence and all. Or something in between. You good with that?”

“I’m cool with that. The first part.” 

“Terrific,” Shane says, “can I suck your cock now?”

“Yeah. I’m cool with that, too.”

Ryan discards his shorts and underwear to God knows where, he doesn’t look in whatever direction he throws it. Shane winks at him before he gets his hand around him, and Ryan has to fight to keep his eyes open, to not lose himself completely in the feeling when Shane runs the flat of his tongue along the length of him and then gets those pink lips around the head with practiced ease. 

For all it’s worth, he does a pretty good job at self composure up until maybe a minute in, which is when Shane sends him a pleased look and then takes him as deep as he can — which is all the fucking way like he was made for it. It makes Ryan’s entire body tingle, right down to the fingers wound in Shane’s hair. 

It’s harder to focus after that, but at the same time, he’s so, so hyperconscious of everything that’s happening, of the fact that, yeah, preppy, composed neat freak Shane Madej is on his knees for him, taking his dick down his throat like some kind of gutter slut. Ryan doesn’t think he’s ever been this turned on in his _life._

And then Shane takes his free hand off his thigh, skates it down to play with Ryan’s balls for a bit. That’s good. Ryan hears himself make a frustrated little noise when the touch ceases, but it’s just because Shane briefly interrupts his current activity to spit in it, and then both his hand and his mouth are back where Ryan needs them.

Then, his spit-slick fingers moving, exploring rather than having a set destination, but they do end up moving lower, over that stretch of skin and then circling where it makes Ryan yelp.

Not a bad yelp, but Shane looks up for reassurance, and so Ryan just nods because— yeah. It’s not like he’s really thought about it much, about actually, well, _fucking,_ and when he did, in his fantasies where Shane was a faceless body but still very much Shane, it would go like this: Shane, shoved facedown into his sheets and whining while Ryan pounds into him with everything he has, hand splayed over the small of his back. Shane, braced against the shower wall while Ryan’s got three fingers in him, whispering filth into his ear about what an annoyance he is, and Shane being too into it to talk back. Shane, bent over that ugly fucking couch of his, fingers digging into that terrible duvet while he’s moaning and pushing back against Ryan like he just can’t ever get enough of him. 

But— yeah, sure, maybe. Not right now, he’s not quite ready for it, neither emotionally nor in other ways, but. Someday, if Shane wanted that. 

Not like he’s actually seen Shane’s dick in person, but the man wears tight pants, and hey, a guy’s gotta look sometimes. Ryan’s only human. Point is, he’s made a rough estimate in his head. And the general idea of it— what he could do to him, maybe, if they— 

It’s a thought, is what it is.

For now, though, he tugs on Shane’s hair, with intent but not too rough, yet not as gentle as before. It just makes Shane moan louder around him, knowledge Ryan puts on the backburner for some other time, and the feeling, the vibrations of it are enough to put him right on edge. He pulls a little harder, his voice shaky and an octave higher than usual when he goes, “Shane, _Shane,_ hold on, _fuck,_ I’m gonna—”

Shane looks up at him through his lashes and pulls off his dick with an obscene _pop,_ doesn’t stop working him with his right hand while his left one comes up again to rest on Ryan’s thigh, fingers digging into his skin. His lips are so, so pink.

“You can come on my face if you like.”

Nonchalant, as if he’s talking about the weather. 

“I– _What?”_

“I’m into it.”

Just laying that on him like it’s nothing. Ryan feels like he’s been run over. “I’m— that’s— Okay, but I’d feel disrespectful doing that right now, so—”

He would, he really would, hates the idea of making Shane feel like nothing more than a hookup — which he is, this isn’t more than that but it still feels wrong, somehow. Mostly, not sure he will be able to handle looking at Shane’s face again once he’s jacked off on it.

Maybe he can work his way up to it, though, when they hook up again. 

If. 

Shane shrugs and then he’s got him in his mouth again, and Ryan, against his will, has no other option but to think about it now, anyway; about what Shane would look like even more disheveled than now, _ruined,_ smiling with red lips and a load all over his— 

That does it then, and Ryan comes, one hand carded through Shane’s hair and the other on Shane’s hand where his fingers are digging into the meat of his thigh, making a noise he can’t possibly mean. He _hears_ Shane swallow even through the blood rushing in his ears. When he manages to dart his eyes down, Shane’s looking up at him, licking his lips. “You alright?”

He feels like saying no just as retaliation for the smugness, but he doesn’t have it in him. Besides, there’s no way Shane’s not aware of how good he is. He lets out a “Never been better,” instead. It doesn’t quite sound as much like hyperbole as he wants it to. 

• • •

Shane’s settled against his pillows by the time Ryan gets back with a glass of water for each of them, legs still wobbly. 

He’s finally gotten rid of the rest of his clothes, save for his surprisingly mundane underwear. Ryan stares. “You’re gonna take those off, too?”

“I didn’t want to wait on your bed with my junk out. Sorry for having a shred of decency. And I thought I’d give you the honor.”

 _Decency._ Like he doesn’t like to be jerked off on. Then again, Ryan can’t say he doesn’t, so he can’t even use that one as blackmail. Mildly lost in thought, he stares and does nothing. 

“Wow,” Shane remarks, “chivalry really is dead,” but he looks positively smug when he takes off his boxers and tosses them to the floor.

And, alright. 

Turns out Ryan was right about something for once. He stares, then gestures with his water glass, mildly flustered and probably coming across as if this is his very first close-up encounter with a dick. “You’re, uh, um. Hello.”

Shane seems unimpressed, like he’s had this happen to him a thousand times. Probably has. “I’m 6’4”. It’s biology,” he says, the ungrateful fuck, and then adds a “You’re not that proportional, thankfully.”

“I— Oh, my God, fuck you?”

“What?” 

“Can’t you just take a compliment about your dick like a normal person?”

Arguing in the middle of Ryan’s bedroom while Shane’s naked. Ryan could get used to it, maybe. 

“What— Mine was a compliment as well!” 

“It was a thinly veiled joke about my height!”

A reassuring hand on his shoulder, then. “Sorry. Won’t happen again, big boy.”

Ryan’s going to fucking _kill_ him. 

Not before making him come, though. He figures Shane’s earned that. More importantly, _he’s_ earned it. Months of this bullshit, he deserves some high quality dick in his life, even if it’s Shane’s. 

Especially if it’s Shane’s.

He gets on the bed.

Shane chuckles at what Ryan assumes is the determination in his face, but he makes a great noise once Ryan spits in his hand and wraps it around his dick. And Ryan’s got no time for fucking around — he’s mostly scared he’d get lost in it, maybe do or say things he doesn’t mean, and so he gets his lips on him immediately. 

It takes less than a minute for Shane to be absolutely insufferable, which might be a new record. “You know...” he says, voice as steady as he can manage — which to Ryan’s credit doesn’t sound like much, “you know what’s great?”

“Mffghh,” Ryan replies.

“That every time you see me, you will think about this.” 

That makes Ryan look up, and Shane’s looking right back. He reaches out and puts a hand on Ryan’s cheek. Ryan stills. “You know. Every time you walk past me.” He smiles, brushes this thumb over where Ryan’s lips are stretched around him. “Every time you look at me, you will remember this.”

He sounds so irritatingly _smug._ He pulls off Shane’s dick, drool dripping down his chin, knowing he must look absolutely wrecked. He wonders if Shane thinks that’s hot. He _hopes_ Shane thinks it’s hot. “Are you trying to wax poetry while I’m sucking your dick? If you’re so bored, you can fuck my mouth.”

“Hmm,” Shane muses. “I’d feel disrespectful doing that, so— Nah, just kidding. C’mere, then. Get at it, Mr. Rimshot.”

By God, Ryan _hates_ him. Sadly, that just makes him want to fuck him more. 

“Tap my leg if it’s too much,” Shane offers, and Ryan suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. He’s been doing this for over a decade, it’s not like he’s some kind of amateur. Except then Shane gets his dick in his mouth again, a hand in Ryan’s hair, and yeah, maybe he is. It’s good, though, really good, and maybe he just wants as much as Shane will give to him tonight. If that means that he has to try his hardest not to retch once Shane’s dick hits the back of his throat, then so be it. 

The whole thing’s great, though, because while he knows Shane is right about Ryan remembering this for at least their working relationship, he knows it will haunt Shane the same way. Shane will sit and read a history book on, what, dead popes or whatever, and he will unexpectedly remember the way Ryan’s moaning around his dick just like Ryan will be making a sick slam-dunk and suddenly think about the way Shane exhales when Ryan traces the vein on his dick with his tongue. He guesses that’s just who they are now. 

It’s a two-way street, an icy, narrow one, and he’s certain neither of them are wearing seatbelts.

Shane lasts longer than he did, though not by long, and by the time he makes the hottest sound Ryan has ever heard in his life and actually _moans_ his name, Ryan is on the verge of getting hard again, and he’s pretty sure he won’t have a voice by tomorrow morning. 

Worth it. 

He follows Shane’s example by swallowing most of his come. That’s worth it, too.

“Jesus,” he says once he’s sat up on his heels again, “that was…” 

“Yeah. You got, uh,” Shane murmurs, and then he reaches out a hand more tender than it has any right to be and swipes his thumb over the corner of Ryan’s mouth, then pops it in Ryan’s mouth again. It’s kind of gross. Ryan loves it. It’s only when he looks up at Shane, finger still in his mouth, that he realizes that they haven’t kissed once tonight. 

So he moves, and then he does. Shane makes a soft little sound against his mouth, and then he kisses him back, tender and sweet, his hands coming up to cup his face. He feels and tastes like Ryan remembers and — what an awful, embarrassing realization that is — has been missing ever since they made out on his couch. It’s better now, though, with their chests sticking together, with the memory of knowing what his name sounds like all broken up and breathy out of Shane’s mouth.

They end up kissing for longer than they fucked.

He can’t muster up the energy to hate that he notices that.

* * *

  
Back in his clothes, Shane somehow looks even more obscene. His shirt is unbuttoned wrong, his cheeks still red, his hair even worse than before somehow. Ryan does kind of want to come on his face a lot. “I’ll see you around, huh?”

“See you, Shane. And, uh, get home safe, okay?” 

He hovers in the doorway for a couple of seconds, like he’s thinking about saying more, but then just leaves him with a soft, “Bye, Ryan.” 

He must change his mind once he’s left because his footsteps suddenly get louder again, and then he sticks his head inside Ryan’s room to say, smiling and a little flustered, “Oh, I never said anything but— it’s still before 12, so I don’t think it even counts but— hey, Happy Valentine’s day anyway.”

Then he’s gone for real. Ryan stares at his absence until he hears the front door close and then flops back down onto his bed, still a little breathless. 

In the safe, solitary comfort of his room, he smiles, too. 

* * *

**  
(you, 12:22am)**  
is cum vegan??

 **(madej, 12:40am)**  
Go to bed, Ryan.  
  



	7. Chapter 7

Friday morning, bright and early, Shane looks just like he always does.

A little tired, if you pay attention, because someone made sure last night that Shane wasn’t getting his 8 hours of beauty sleep — but if his eyes look a tad smaller than usual, slightly red-rimmed, it’s barely noticeable behind his stupid glasses. The ones he almost forgot at Ryan’s place yesterday night. The ones that laid on Ryan’s desk while Shane had his dick down his throat. 

Yeah. Those stupid glasses.

Other than that, he’s talking and nodding along with the conversation he’s roped two of their colleagues into, and when he spots Ryan entering the room he gives him a small wave and a smaller smile. He’s drinking out of Ryan’s coffee cup.

Safe to say — he’s just good ol’ Shane.

Which is soothing. Because last night, not long after he had left and Ryan made his way to the bathroom and turned on the lights, he was dreading somebody else to stare back at him in the mirror. Somebody with haunted eyes. Somebody scared shitless. Somebody who regretted this night already, even though Ryan, at that time, did not. 

But it was just good ol’ Ryan. 

• • •

By the time he leaves his last class, he’s still not sure how exactly to answer the 6:36am text that simply reads, _Good morning_ and worse, the one eleven minutes after, like Shane was taking his sweet time thinking about what to say, _I’ll be honest, even if yours wasn’t, I’d still be up for more,_ and so he doesn’t answer at all.

* * *

The morning after Valentine’s day — or at least the morning of the respective Saturday after Valentine’s day — is always rough. Any day now he’s going to do some in-depth research and figure out who the fuck came up with the ridiculous idea of a night out solely for _proud bachelors_ , aka people who were frustrated they weren’t getting laid regularly, in the first place. (He’s pretty sure if it was Keith, it’s always Keith who comes up with shit like this, and he hasn’t even been part of this particular group for years since he decided to get hitched, bless his heart. Ryan wishes he could relate.)

Whatever. He had gone home after a couple of drinks anyway, not interested in mingling and eventually finding one or more people to briefly forget about his bachelorhood with, and he feels pretty good about it now. 

He’s not hungover, but he must’ve been out of it enough to completely forgo charging his phone, and he wakes up to his screen displaying, in an angry shade of red, a one-digit battery percentage. Still yawning, he ends up spending minutes digging his way through the living room drawers stuffed with various paraphernalia. He knows the music on Sara’s ancient MP3 player that works with batteries is going to be shit to run to but he doesn’t trust his phone to last through it and it’s better than no tunes at all. Once he’s washed the bad taste from his mouth and chugged down some liquid protein, he’s pretty much ready to go.

He can’t help checking his texts before he leaves, though.

And… Nothing.

Despite the very sweet message he vaguely recalls sending just before 11pm reading, accompanied by a couple of beer emojis, _Hi shaaaaaane. Happy vday. Wanna come over. Sorry for not answering your text about cumbersome_

That was after he had realized he hadn’t even checked his phone all night, and also after he had downed two shots in quick succession. Having sent the message doesn’t faze him as much as not having received an answer does, and either way, the most horrifying thing about it is his phone still autocorrecting _cum_ to actual dictionary words. 

Surely it should know better by now.

His thumb hovers over the app, unsure what to do, and the best thing he can come up withis to clear his head first. 

He decidedly skips every stupid indie song that reminds him of the shit that always plays when they hang out at Shane’s apartment. (He’s just glad Sara had a Wu-tang phase when she briefly dated that butch who could beat Ryan in arm-wrestling no problem and restored motorcycles for fun — he’s got something to listen to that doesn’t feature some guy with a guitar whining about lost love in stupid metaphors.)

Ryan’s not quite sure the fresh air actually helps with his foggy state of mind, but it turns out it doesn’t matter at all.

He’s got a missed call when he gets back.

For someone who definitely, absolutely 100% isn’t whipped at all, he can’t even bring himself to shower or do literally anything else first except wolf down a sandwich at the speed of light before calling him back. There’s a smile of relief on his face he only notices when he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror when Shane picks up, his voice sounding warm and inviting even when all he says is a simple, “Hiya, Ryan.”

“Morning. You called?”

“Yeah. Just wanted to know what’s up.”

In his head, he can see Shane as if he’s right in front of him, his hair not styled in any way, wearing the stupid pajamas he wears to sleep — seriously, Ryan has no idea how he gets laid unless everybody else he comes across has taste just as questionable as Ryan does — cuddling Obi or doing something else that inexplicably makes Ryan’s heart beat a little faster when he thinks about it. 

Or maybe that’s just from wearing himself out running.

“Why, you bored?”

“Maybe. Whatcha up to?”

He lays down face-up on his bed, blows a strand of hair out of his forehead. “Hmm. Thinking about your dick.”

He’s not. Not really. Or not more than he usually does, anyway. But he has to get out the big guns just to test the waters of this, to try and scope out just how bold Shane _jerk off on my face_ Madej really is. Nothing wrong with figuring out what he’s working with, now that they’ve come to a mutual agreement to hook up just a little bit.

Really, if Shane didn’t want him to be like this — and he’s sure Shane _does_ want him to be like this — he shouldn’t have brought up Valentine’s Day right after sucking him off in the first place. 

“Interesting,” Shane quips, “I was just eating banana bread.”

Not really what he was expecting. “I... okay.”

“What?” Shane says, a smile in his tone, and despite himself, it makes Ryan grin too, “you want me to lie? Ohh, Sir Bergara, all morning I have yearned to hear your voice. Please, thou must beat thy meat on this here cellular device or I will wither.”

“Wow. I hate you.”

“Sure you do.”

Ryan chews on his thumbnail. “Hold on, did you… _want_ me to… beat mine meat?”

Shane lets out a little laugh, one of frustrated disbelief, like he’s become aware just how inept Ryan is at this _being all buddy-buddy with the guy you’re fucking_ thing. “Whatever you want, Ryan. I mean, we can talk about my dick, we can talk about your day, talk about— whatever, I don’t know. Just wanted to chat. It’s called communication, rumor has it it’s vital for interpersonal relationships.”

Even in this context, simply hearing the _word_ relationship out of Shane’s mouth makes him feel funny, like he’s about to open a present and bungee-jump without knowing whether the rope will hold all at once. He swallows. “Hmm. I— Okay, how was your evening?”

“Played DnD with my brother and a couple friends. You and Sara should come with us one day, it’s fun.”

Jesus, with all his uncomfortable attraction to him, Ryan regularly manages to forget how fucking nerdy the guy is most of the time. “Uh, sure. Fun.”

Ryan doesn’t mean to sound as dismissive as he does, but he regrets it as soon as Shane sighs, another frustrated little sound. “ _Fun,_ yeah. How about you?”

“I went out.” He bites his lip, the pause he makes just a second too long. “With— with friends, I mean, I didn’t— Nothing— you know. Just. Friends.”

Another too-long pause, from the other end of the speaker this time. “What, you’d think I’d be jealous?”

“No, I— no. What.”

“...Alright. Well. Did you have a nice night, at least? I mean, judging from your text...”

Ryan groans. “Yeah. Sorry for that.”

“It’s fine. It was cute. Were you asleep when I called?”

He scoffs. “Excuse me? I was on a run. I’m a healthy guy, alright? Which also means I have to shower soon. I’m, like, disgusting.”

“Hmm. Nice.”

“Huh?”

Shane laughs. “I mean, I guess I can tell you now. I’ve always found you... really hot when I saw you getting out of class. Sweaty and stuff.” 

No way he’s not fucking with him. “You’re fucking with me.”

“No! I figure it’s evolution. You want a strong, athletic man to take care of you. Even if he’s 5 foot 9, you know.”

“Ooh, low blow, man. And it’s 10. Not 9.”

“In shoes, maybe.”

“Okay, sasquatch.”

Another laugh. “Well, anyway. Starting to get personal here, so go take your shower.”

• • •

 **(you, 10:46am)** **  
** Hey want a pic of me before i clean up since you’re into that so much?

Ryan regrets it as soon as soon as he has, at light-speed, acquired consent in the form of the red emoji that’s got its tongue stuck out. He feels ridiculous about it, having to take a somewhat sexy pic in the bathroom mirror while his hair looks like a greasy mess and his face is flushed, but hey, it’s either that it turns Shane on or that he stops being into weird shit.

And so he sends it.

Once he’s toweling off his hair, he’s received a picture back that forces him to sit down and take a couple breaths. He’s going to have to delete it in case Sara uses his phone anytime in the near future, he doesn’t want to scar her for life, but— Yeah. He figures he and Shane are alright.

• • •

 **(madej, 11:13am)** **  
** By the way, I would’ve been a little jealous, if that means anything to you.

It does. After long deliberating, he sends the smiling cat emoji back and hopes Shane gets it. 

* * *

He starts, subconsciously at first, tallying things up in his head, trying to work out the effort they are both putting into this — Shane asked him out first, that’s a 1:0. Ryan’s the one who leaned in first when they kissed. 1:1. Shane sucked him off first _and_ asked to be jerked off on. 3:1. Ryan’s the one who sent the first somewhat naughty pic. 3:2.

He won’t hire Sara as a referee to figure out whether the numbers are correct, whether this game or at least his estimation of it are entirely fair. Knowing her, she’d declare one of them a winner when quite honestly, Ryan would love for it to be a tie in the end.

* * *

“Oh, your boyfriend hit me up earlier,” Sara says days later, sitting crossed-legged on the floor and doodling into her sketchbook. It’s probably the worst thing Ryan’s ever heard her say — it makes him blush right up to his ears and his throat go dry.

“He is— not— he’s the furthest thing from a boyfriend I could possibly have.”

“Hmm,” she smiles, a hint of mischief to it, “so he’s, like, a boy… fiend?”

Ryan eyes her. “How long have you been sitting on that one?”

“Around a month. Either way, he wants to know if we’re coming over later? It’s, uh, quote, Pot Pilgrim night, unquote.” 

Ryan lets out a groan, one that comes deep from the heart. “God, I can’t believe I fucked him.”

“Oh, I can. Which says more about you than me. And I thought you didn’t, uh, y’know, bump uglies to completion yet.”

“ _Bump_ _—_ no, but I mean, there was, uh, mouth stuff.”

“Yuck. Either way, I’m driving, so you guys can get high and stare at each other or whatever you people do.”

“ _You people._ You sound like a homophobe.”

She throws the wrapping paper of her chocolate bar in his general direction. “You’re turning me into one.”

That’s fair, Ryan supposes. “Touché.”

“So. Are we going?”

“You know we are.”

She grins, and snaps the chocolate in half to give to him, like it’s the closest she has to the metaphorical olive branch. “Yeah. I know.”

* * *

Enough edibles to get a comfortable, warm high going and 1½ hours into the movie, there’s a hand on his thigh. He stares at it. Then he stares at Shane, who’s pointedly looking away from him. Back at the screen, back at the hand. When he looks up at Sara to avoid getting whiplash, she’s staring at the hand, too, and when she lifts her gaze and finds Ryan’s, she grins. 

• • •

Being the wingwoman she’s always been for him, she conveniently checks her phone as soon as the credits roll and gasps. “Oh, shit,” she says, “there’s a gerbil situation happening.”

Shane giggles. “A— what?”

She’s already up and ready to go, grabbing her backpack. “Gerbil situation. You know. My girlfriend. Gerbils. I don’t know, they escaped or— Well, I’ll pick you up later, Ry, I’ll text you.”

She gives Shane a quick hug and winks at Ryan before she leaves, pulling the door shut behind her quietly.

They both frown. Obi’s purring from where he’s rolled up on one end of the couch. The stupid cuckoo clock on Shane’s wall ticks aggressively enough to make snap Ryan out of it and assess the situation. “I— Okay, I don’t think there’s anything with gerbils happening at all,” he declares.

“Mh-hmm,” Shane hums in reply, and then, “I know,” and just like that, he’s got his mouth on Ryan’s, pulling him in by the collar of his shirt to kiss him properly. He makes a soft little sound when Ryan deepens the kiss, uses his tongue, and it’s the best thing Ryan’s ever heard.

It’s nice, making out with him while high. He’s less busy thinking about, well, much of anything, not bothered by the intricacies of what this is and who they are, to occupied taking in all the ways kissing Shane and just being here makes him lose his mind in the best ways — how soft Shane’s hair is and how nice his hand feels on Ryan’s face where he’s cupping his jaw.

He opens his mouth when they break apart, unsure about what he even wants to say — _That was some damn good weed_ or _I’m very happy here_ or _This is a good color on you_ or _I think I should fuck you silly one day_ or _I think you should fuck me silly one day_ or, honestly, any other combination of words.

What tumbles out instead is, “We should go to that stupid museum next weekend.”

Shane smiles, seals it with a kiss.

3:3.

* * *

He’s up half an hour early to iron what he decides is a nice, yet casual enough shirt for Going To The Museum With The Guy You’re Banging, But It’s Probably Not a Date Because We’re Not Calling It That And I Sure As Shit Am Not Gonna Ask. Sara takes a picture of the scene, calling it crucial evidence in case Ryan ever talks smack about a certain colleague again.

Ryan doesn’t even care. He’s too busy trying to figure out how to get the shirt into his messenger bag without it getting fucked up in there amongst his gym stuff and the nicest cologne he owns.

• • •

Getting ready under normal circumstances wouldn’t take him long. Never does, because what works for him is pretty easy — you shower and put on some nice clothes and craft yourself a nice little hairdo and before you leave you put two sprays of cologne on yourself, and that’s it. He’s tried and tested it, and it works on most guys.

He takes 10 minutes longer than usual, because this look is much more carefully curated than his usual shtick, he has to still appear like, well, the Ryan Shane knows. He can’t look too done up because that would just be _weird,_ and so he spends a pretty pathetic amount of time trying to make his hair look good, just not too good. 

He skipped out on shaving this morning, too, but not to look casual — it’s just that he remembered Shane’s comment from the other night. 

Ugh.

Despite his hang-ups, he’s early, and so he sits on the bench that’s farthest away but still gives him a clear view of the door Shane told him to wait in front of, trying not to look suspicious.

Whatever could be suspicious about this, he’s not sure. All he’s doing is waiting for a coworker. Fuckbuddy, maybe, except they’re not buddies. Not really. Ryan’s not sure what they are, and he’s even less sure what he wants them to be.

Just. _Something_ is enough. He needs to relax.

He’s two years deep down Shane’s ex’s Instagram account when the door opens, students pouring out into the wide halls. Ryan cranes his neck to catch a glimpse into the room. And hell, maybe he’s postponing the relaxing thing to tomorrow. 

Shane’s casually leaning against his desk, talking to a student. He looks cartoonish as ever, using his hands a lot the way he does when he talks, a little smile on his face, wearing a black turtleneck. Which is jarring — he’s not used to seeing Shane in one color (though he is wearing his stupid maroon pants again to balance it out), but he does have to admit that sadly, it’s hot. 

When he walks closer, he can see the stupid blue puppet on his desk as well, and he rolls his eyes at the sight. It’s still not enough to turn him off this thing, though. 

Once the girl has left and skipped down the stairs behind him he looks around and then, deeming the situation safe enough, enters the room and lets the door fall shut behind him. 

“Oh, wow,” Shane says when he looks up, pushing his glasses up his nose, “who are _you?”_

“Huh.”

“No. I mean, you look nice. Just… Did you get changed? And into a button-up, Bergara? Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Thanks. Nice turtleneck.”

It’s Shane’s turn to make a face now, crossing his arms across his chest. “Ugh, God. Knew I shouldn’t have worn it.”

“What? No, I… It looks good.”

It does. It really does. Judging from his grin, Shane’s aware and just wanted him to say it. 

Ryan didn’t realize how fast his feet carried him, but he’s right in front of him now. Shane walks him backwards until Ryan’s pressed against the edge of his desk. In the fraction of a second, he’s got him lifted on top of it, hands placed on his knees. Ryan blinks. 

“Glad you came,” Shane says, palms darting up Ryan’s thighs, and he doesn’t have it in him to make a cheap _not yet_ joke. Instead, “Yeah. Me too.”

Like this, standing between his legs, Shane seems even taller than usual. Ryan remembers half a year ago when the height sparked jealousy in him, but these days, acknowledging it just kind of sends waves all the way down his spine and to his fingertips.

Shane leans in for a second, not to kiss him, but to smell him where his shoulder meets his neck. “Are you wearing cologne?”

He should’ve gone with one spray. Or, better yet, just let the Axe do its magic. Ryan mentally kicks himself.

“Yeah. I know you said you like me dirty or whatever, so— sorry.”

“Funny.”

“No, really. I showered, but if that’s a dealbreaker, I can always put on my used gym clothes again. No biggie.”

Shane shakes his head, still smiling, digs his fingernails into Ryan’s thighs a little and makes him shiver all over. “You’re gonna hold that against me forever, huh. It’s not even that— Just wait until I find out whatever kinky shit you’re into.”

“Yeah, I’ll wait.” 

“Speaking of which,” Shane says quietly, leaning in again, lips right against his ear and Ryan thinks that if he were to kiss him there right now — and perhaps lick a stripe down his jaw, or use his teeth a little — he would quite literally lose his mind, or maybe he’d just ascend and never come back down to this planet, “you know what we should do one of these days?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I think one of these days I should lock that door and fuck you on this,” and it’s so bold and out of nowhere Ryan can’t help but let out a soft little whine. The sad, sad truth is that Ryan’s so into this, so into _him_ he’d probably risk getting fired and/or going to prison for public indecency, and he lets out a shaky breath when Shane takes a step backwards. His face is flushed, but Ryan can’t imagine that he himself is painted a lesser shade of red. 

“Someday’s not today, right?” Ryan can’t help but ask, voice awfully hopeful despite knowing the answer already, and Shane grins.

“No. We got plans. But, raincheck.”

“Yeah. We could get arrested for that, you know.”

“Mh-hmm. Handcuffs not on your list?”

Ryan hops off the desk, shaking his head — not to answer the question, but rather to comment on Shane’s general existence. He’s a little hard, maybe. It’s fine, though, he’s got the feeling they’ll deal with that at one point today.

* * *

It turns out there’s only so many rooms of dusty sports memorabilia even Ryan is able to stomach before he gets sick of it, though he does spend an embarrassingly long time in the gift shop, eventually buying a bunch of ridiculous knick-knacks. Shane makes fun of him for it the entire ride to the pie place he’s dragging him to. 

He wouldn’t stop yapping about it when they were making their way through the How Basketball Began exhibit, and Ryan should drive out far the city and abandon Shane by the side of the road for that alone, but—

But.

Shane taps Ryan’s arm. “It’s here.”

He comes to a halt in front of the vaguely pretentious-looking little shop, stares at the fake-vintage sign for a couple of seconds. _“Pie Hole?”_

“Yup.”

“God, that’s incredible. Hey, you figure they got some sort of cream—”

“Please. _Please_ don’t say it.”

“Okay, big guy. None of those for you, then.”

“We’ll see about that,” Shane says, quite ominously, and gets out of the car before Ryan can come up with any sort of reply. That’s fine. It wouldn’t have been coherent anyway.

• • •

_I got one foot on the platform_

_The other on a train…_

“You know,” Shane says from his seat across from Ryan, pushing his empty plate into the middle of the table, “if we were in a movie, that thing would be playing Here Comes The Sun or something. Instead, we’re stuck with the Depression Deluxe playlist. I swear, we haven’t heard a single cheerful song since we arrived.”

“Hey, these were dire times, most of the music was kind of sad. And God, of course you like The Beatles.”

“I do not. They have a few bangers, though.”

Ryan mouths _bangers_ at him, and Shane grins, and then he smacks his lips together before he pouts them around the straw in his diet coke — of course he’s got a straw, a striped one, and all this is truly bordering on parody — and gives Ryan an innocent look.

Except— not innocent, because he slides one of his shoes under the table, the tip edging along the hem of Ryan’s jeans, and he raises a brow when Ryan looks up at him, his face probably full of question marks. 

He was wrong about parody. It’s torture, that’s what this is.

“You didn’t have to order the vegan option just to indulge me, you know.”

Shane’s still going, making his way up and down Ryan’s shin. 

“Huh? No, it’s just— It’s good. It’s. Yeah. It’s good.”

He’s stammering. He’s red-faced. He still thinks about how he called Shane _big guy_ completely unironically. He should get out of here.

“We should get out of here,” Shane says.

That works as well.

• • •

“Are, uh. Are you coming up?”

It was all leading here. He knew it the second Shane got into his car this afternoon.

“I… Yeah. Guess I am.”

“Yeah?”

Ryan looks at Shane. He’s smirking. 

Ryan smiles back, undoes his seatbelt. 

“Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you haven't seen the video where [shane and ryan visit the pie hole](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqcWRyxwMdE) i highly recommend it. i took some liberties describing their Vibe to fit shane's aesthetic better. sue me!


	8. Chapter 8

Ryan’s shirt is halfway off before the door has even had the slightest chance to fully shut behind them.

Shane’s doing a somewhat decent job not keeling over on the way to his bedroom while also getting the rest of his buttons open, and Ryan lets him. He’s got more practice anyway, what with his endless supply of stupid shirts that Ryan may or may not be absolutely head-over-heels for. Skilled hands, one might say. Ryan swallows and shuts the voice inside his head off.

Shane must have set down his glasses somewhere along the way — Ryan doesn’t know, and he doesn’t care, he doesn’t even remember walking the way from his car to the house or who pressed who against the wall outside first.

“I don’t usually do this,” Shane declares as soon as they’re in his room, and Ryan needs a moment to discern he’s actually talking to the cat sleeping on his pillow and not him, “but this is a medical emergency, so,” and then he’s got Obi picked up, hurriedly carrying him out of the room.

He’s back in a flash, nudges his bedroom door with his foot so that it falls shut, too.

“Medical emergency,” Ryan says, dryly, dropping his shirt to the floor, “what, lack of dick?”

“Yeah,” Shane walks him backwards to push him down onto his bed and get on top of him, “exactly.”

Shane gets his head stuck in his sweater when he tries to take it off, giddy with it and making them both laugh, but he’s also so, so eager to get his hands on him, and Ryan doesn’t complain when he brings them into a somewhat horizontal position and pretty unceremoniously shoves both of their pants down.

This close to him, Ryan uses the opportunity to press a kiss to where his neck meets his shoulder, and Shane squirms. “No hickeys,” he says, “not where people can see.”

Prude. Like their dicks aren’t touching. “Just wear your fucking turtlenecks,” Ryan murmurs, only half-joking, but Shane shoves his head an inch away and holds a hand under his mouth. Ryan stares.

“Spit,” Shane says, stern, and Ryan’s too taken aback to even consider declining — not that a command like that is something he would say no to in any context. He considers a stupid retort once he’s done it, something like _wow, romantic,_ but he’s not sure he could make his voice sound ironic enough, and it’s fruitless, anyway — Shane gets his slick hand around them both and it shuts him up alright. 

It’s pretty good, right up until Shane stops after a minute or two. “This angle blows,” he murmurs, frustrated, shaking his wrist like he’s got a cramp in it, and then gets back to work, but it’s uncoordinated now, awkward. 

“Wow,” Ryan teases, and he bats Shane’s hand away to get his own around Shane’s dick, neglecting himself because he doesn't give a damn just now, “out of practice, are we?” 

Shane rolls his eyes, but he leans down to kiss Ryan anyway. It doesn’t take long to get him to the edge after that, he must’ve been waiting for this all day just like Ryan has, and Ryan is the one to make more noise when Shane blows his load all over him.

“It’s your fault I haven’t hooked up with anyone in ages,” Shane says, the timing calculated like he’d been sitting on it for minutes, waiting for it to have maximum impact, and it works just like everything else he does — all it takes after that is for him to wipe his palm through the mess on Ryan’s stomach and then wrap his cum-slick hand around Ryan’s dick; he doesn’t even get to properly jerk him off before Ryan, too, comes all over himself, gasping. 

He resents what kind of effect even simple words have on him these days.

“Fuck,” he pants when Shane rolls off him, trying to catch his breath, “fuck, that was good.”

“Was it, now.” 

It was. Ryan’s not sure he’s come this hard from frottage since he was a freshman, but he’s not complaining — he’s entirely content right here, literally still in his shoes, pants and boxers shoved down to his ankles. “I’d ask you for a cigarette right now if I smoked.”

Shane snickers, wiping his hand on his sheets. Gross. 

“Thanks. Likewise.”

Looking around the room, Ryan’s eyes get caught on the absolute abomination nailed to his wall, and he frowns. “Is that a fucking butterfly?”

Shane whips his head around to the blue insect encased in glass. “Oh, right! Lovely, ain’t he? I’m thinking about getting more.”

“I— God, you’re gonna kill me in my sleep tonight.” 

Shane laughs. “Ryan, you’re ridiculous.”

“ _You’re_ ridiculous, you’re aware of that, right? Taking me to a sports museum, you may as well have worn a neon sign around your neck that says _Fuck me_.” 

“Been wearing that sign for months, not my fault you’re illiterate.” 

Ryan wants to strangle him. Ryan wants to kiss him until he forgets his own name. He does neither of those for now, kicks his shoes and the rest of his jeans off and pulls his underwear back into place instead. 

“Hold on. _Kill you in your sleep?_ You know something I don’t know?”

Oh, god. “Oh, god. No, I wasn’t saying— It’s a figure of speech, I didn’t—”

Shane rolls his eyes at him. “I was gonna ask anyway. You got anywhere to be tomorrow morning?”

Ryan bites his lip. He’s had a long day. He feels positively worn out _._ So he shakes his head. 

Shane raises a brow. “So...”

“Yeah. I can stay,” he offers, taking the plunge, “I keep a toothbrush in my car.”

Shane snorts. ”Wow.”

_“What?”_

“It’s just— Ryan, you’re a regular harlot.”

“...I’ll _show_ you a harlot.”

Shane nudges Ryan with his shoulder and gets up, presumably to get something to wipe the mess from Ryan’s stomach and chest. 

From the doorway, he smiles at him, cryptic. 

“Yeah. Was hoping you would.” 

• • •

 **(sara,** **1:10** **pm)** **  
** have fun today babe text me when you can

 **(sara,** **3:24** **pm)** **  
** hi? how's it going

 **(sara,** **4:54** **pm)** **  
** hiiii

 **(sara,** **6:01** **pm)** **  
** yo i’m going to start burning your jerseys soon. 

**(sara,** **6:52** **pm)** **  
** last chance

 **(sara,** **7:34** **pm)** **  
** RYAN!!!! acab but i feel compelled to call the cops 

_You have 3 missed calls from_ **_sara_ **

**(you,** **7:41** **pm)** **  
** Hi uh 

**(you,** **7:41** **pm)** **  
** Staying with shane for the night no dumb questions

 **(sara,** **7:43** **pm)** **  
** oh cool you're alive. was worried i'd have to find someone else who will dye my favorite white sweater pink because he doesn't know how to do laundry

 **(sara,** **7:43** **pm)** **  
** don't think i have any questions ry. i’ve heard a thing or two bout the birds and the bees. stay safe/use protection/text me in the morning

 **(you,** **7:50** **pm)** **  
** Yes. I love u

 **(sara,** **7:52** **pm)** **  
** emotional manipulation! ily 2 have fun ya lil lovebirds

• • •

_lil lovebirds._

Ryan rolls his eyes.

Ryan kisses Shane goodnight at his bedroom door, on his tiptoes to be closer, Shane’s hands buried in his hair. 

* * *

Something soft and warm is in his face when he wakes. He swats at it, disoriented, and hears a _thunk_ and tiny little footsteps in response, hurriedly moving away.

A _tsk_ sound from Shane, then. “Don’t hit the cat, dude,” he hears him say, “he’ll scratch out your eyes.”

Ryan opens said (still intact, for now) eyes, blinks, feeling positively groggy. Shane’s standing by his counter in his dumb-ass pajamas, in his hand some sort of freaky looking smoothie he must have gotten from the fridge — surely the sound of the blender would have woken Ryan up. Obi’s sitting by his feet, staring at Ryan.

When he squints at the cuckoo clock, it displays an absolutely disgusting _6:42_ , and Ryan frowns. He kicks his blanket off to sit up, stretch and yawn just a little exaggeratedly, and when he cracks his back for good measure, Shane makes a face.

“What? Your couch sucks. I’m all tense.”

Shane rolls his eyes, takes a sip of the green slime he’s holding. Ryan should be the one making faces here. 

“And that’s my fault?”

“It’s your couch.”

“Could’ve slept in the bed.”

“Yeah, I guess I could’ve.”

They stare at each other, Ryan at what he can see of Shane’s chest through the two unbuttoned top buttons of his pajama shirt, and Shane — judging from where his eyes are lingering — at his dick through his underwear. “Hmm.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, you want breakfast?”

It’s very casual. Everything about this is, somehow. 

So Ryan shrugs, nods. Casually.

• • •

“Hell is your deal, anyway?” Ryan asks when he walks around the counter to peek at whatever Shane is frying — he has no idea even after looking — “who gets up at 6 on a Saturday?” 

“I got things to do today.” Entirely unabashed.

“Oh, so you’re kicking me out.”

Shane frowns, moving whatever is in the pan around with a spatula. “No. I am making you breakfast.”

“And after that you’re kicking me out.”

“Why do you— No. I— I mean, what is _your_ deal? Who brushes their teeth right before eating?” 

“It’s so I can do this,” he says, and kisses Shane square on the cheek, then on his mouth when Shane turns his head. It’s more douchey and awkward than smooth, but it makes Shane blush high in his cheeks, which is pretty great.

“Hmm. Good point.” Shane slides what now appears to be either an omelette or a science fair experiment onto a plate. “Hey, you wanna eat this in bed?”

Shane’s more transparent than he thinks.

“Is this a ruse to get me to come back to bed with you? Just ask.”

“Okay, stupid. Come back to bed with me.”

He decides he will, despite the insult. The couch does kind of suck, after all.

* * *

Their plates abandoned and forgotten on the floor, sunlight sneaking its way through Shane’s blinds and dancing over the walls, they lay there for a while, breathing shared air. Shane trails a hand over his stomach, an inch above his waistband and Ryan could get into the mood, maybe, but he’s still sleepy and it’s barely 8, so he just enjoys the touch by itself. They probably still got some time today to take care of all that before Shane kicks him out again to do whatever’s more important than Ryan’s presence. It’s no big deal, Ryan’s gonna find something to do, too. Something cool that Shane wishes he was doing instead of sorting stamps or whatever the hell he is planning to do that doesn’t involve Ryan. Yeah. 

His last thought before he falls asleep again, his face smushed against Shane’s pillow and Shane slowly drawing patterns on his back with his fingers, sometimes going up to the nape of his neck and stroking the hair there, is that this is dangerously close to cuddling. 

• • •

He can’t tell whether he’s dozed off for 10 minutes or an hour, but he joins the land of the living again to the sound of footsteps, face buried in the faint scent of chamomile shampoo and whatever the hell Shane’s detergent smells of. 

“Great,” Shane says when he walks back into the bedroom, hair damp and a towel slung around his waist, “you’re awake.”

And then, casually, “Catch.”

As expected, it’s a poor throw, but Ryan does, and he frowns when he looks at the bottle in his hand. “Really?”

It’s lube. The good, thick, expensive-looking stuff, the bottle one of the novelty-kind with little purple hearts printed all over it. It’s half-empty, but Ryan tries not to mind. He shouldn’t. And either way, better to be an optimist about this whole thing. _Half-full_ lube bottle it is. 

He gestures with it. “What’s, uh.”

“It’s lube. You see, the greeks used olive oil, but I’m allergic, so—“ 

“Shane.”

“Ryan.” Shane looks _way_ too amused. “Told you I have things to do.”

“I— Wait, _I’m_ the things?”

“You’re the things.”

Ryan scratches his head. “Uh. So, like. You want me to fuck you, or?”

“I just threw a bottle of lube at you, and I spent a significant time in the shower, Ryan. What’s it look like?”

“Like you want me to fuck you, I guess.”

Shane does the brow-raise thing, crosses his arms. “What’s the matter, you don’t want it? Don’t think you can handle all this ass?”

Ryan snorts. “What ass?”

The corner of Shane’s mouth twitches, and he lets his towel fall. It’s only fair for Ryan to follow suit and drop what little is left of his inhibitions, too.

• • •

Once he’s maneuvered Shane where he has wanted him for ages, which is ass-up, he wastes no further time and puts his mouth right where he seems fit. Shane hisses his name like a curse word.

After that, he’s all but reduced to soft, tender noises, little gasps and moans and it just makes Ryan wonder how he would sound if— no, how he is _going_ to sound when Ryan fucks him, and he has to hold back a noise himself. 

He does, briefly, interrupts his new favorite activity to tap Shane’s thigh. “You know, it was kind of bold of you to assume I was gonna do this.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. The shaving. You just look the type.”

“Gonna take that as a compliment,” Ryan mutters, because it is, and it gets whatever Shane was going to say stuck in his throat when he leans in again, drags his tongue flat over his hole and then down, pays some attention to his balls and the underside of his hard dick, and then back up. 

The sound Shane makes once Ryan, experimentally, gets his thumb into him after opening him up more with his tongue is muffled against the sheets, but it’s still so visceral it burns itself into Ryan’s memory like battery acid.

He pushes back against it, the movement deliberate and wanton, and so Ryan withdraws his hand to look for the lube bottle that somehow magically managed to disappear somewhere in Shane’s sheets. Once acquired, he squirts some in his hand, hasty with it. Shane spreading out the towel earlier proves useless for now because he dribbles lube all over the bed anyway, but he’s too impatient and turned on to care. 

“Wait, I wanna,” and he touches Shane’s shoulder, to tell him wordlessly to turn around and face him because he’s not sure there’s a way to say it out loud.

“Sap,” Shane exclaims, but he does it, flushed and out of breath already, and Ryan gets two slicked-up fingers into him in response. 

It’s absurd how new this feels to him, as if he doesn’t know what he’s doing, as if he hasn’t done this a pretty solid number of times. He’s had one-night stands. He’s had flings. He’s had boyfriends. He’s had people that were all three in usually that order. He’s never had whatever he has with Shane. It’s something else, somehow, to now have your fingers in a guy you see almost every day but aren’t exactly friends with. (But oh, shut up, what else are you then? What else do you allow yourselves to be?) It’s something else to have him push back against it, eager, and to whisper your name like he knows exactly what it does to you. 

He’s never seriously considered tying the knot and it’s the last thing on his mind when he thinks about Shane but he still wonders whether this is what waiting until marriage feels like. He felt drunk on it when he first put his mouth on him but he’s sobering up, that jittery nervousness dissolving into something else — something hungry and needy, like he’s been aching years for it and not mere weeks.

With ease, he finds the angle that makes Shane thrash a little, and he almost regrets it — he wonders if he could’ve gotten Shane to beg for it, really, really beg for it. Some other time, maybe, when they do this again, he could take his time, press Shane down into the sheets and shake him apart with his mouth and his fingers, mould him into a babbling, shaking mess until Ryan gives him what he wants. 

Right now, though, he’s transfixed by Shane’s dick where it’s curving up against his belly, leaking at the tip, and he can’t fucking _wait_ to fuck him. 

Three fingers inside him now and Shane throws an arm over his eyes, whines a little. “Keep doing that and I’m gonna come,” he warns him, at least it’s probably meant to be a warning. Ryan just chuckles. 

“That supposed to stop me?”

“No, I mean, _mhh,_ I was thinking you should — you should fuck me.”

“Am I not doing that?”

“I— Jesus, _Ryan_ , get your stupid dick in me, I mean. The whole nine yards. Cross the goal line. Hey, look, I made a, _fuck,_ a sports reference.”

It’s all the more initiative to fuck into him a little faster. “That’s all a great idea,” Ryan muses, “but I’ll make you come now, anyway.”

It doesn’t take much, all he has to do is wrap his left hand around Shane’s dick and get a resemblance of a rhythm going with his other one, and without further ado, Shane comes all over himself with his fingers dug into his sheets, making a choked-up, ugly noise high in his throat that sounds like he’s dying. Ryan could probably make fun of Shane for that, or for how fast he came once he had something in his ass in general.

He doesn’t, though. 

They stare at each other for a second, and Ryan uses the downtime to swipe his fingers through the come on Shane’s stomach, suck it off his fingers, and then, in a stroke of genius, stick them in Shane’s mouth for good measure.

“Didn’t peg you for such a slut,” he says, immediately regretting it for fear of going too far, but Shane just moans around his fingers, swirls his tongue around them, giving him a bit of a show, and then grins at him once Ryan withdraws his hand, his lips spit-slick. 

His eyes are glazed over when he drops his gaze down to where Ryan’s got a hand wrapped around his dick now. “I think that you’re the one about to peg me right now.” 

“Oh, _shut_ up.”

Ryan’s expecting a clichéd, “Make me,” somehow, but he realizes that’s something _he_ would say — maybe he’s just projecting. Shane only gives him a smug smile, tosses Ryan the condom he must have placed on his nightstand earlier, maybe when Ryan was asleep. He turns over again, hands and knees for him. 

It’s a bit much, he has to admit, and he’s kind of glad Shane can’t see his hands shaking when he rolls it on and slicks himself up. He carelessly tosses the bottle and the wrapper aside, and Shane sighs.

“What, you want me to take it outside to the waste bin?”

“I want you to _get on with it.”_

“Impatient,” and he knee walks until he's lined up, “bossy.” 

Now that it’s imminent, he feels lost. He’s wanted this for so long, even if he didn’t know he did, and despite the guy’s obvious impatience, part of him needs some confirmation that Shane needs it this bad as well, needs to hear him _say_ it — not just that he wants this, but that he wants him, specifically. And so he takes the last shred of willpower he has and doesn’t press into him right away, slaps the head of his cock against Shane’s hole instead, once, twice. “You want this?” 

“Fuck, Ryan. Yes.”

He does it again, his dick catching on Shane’s rim, and Shane gasps, moves back against it. Ryan puts a hand on the small of his back to still him. “Gonna say the magic word?”

“I— _Prick.”_

“Sure that’s it?“

Shane groans, frustrated. “Ryan, come the fuck on.” 

“Uh-uh. No. Gotta say it.”

He feels bold with it, on top of the world and too distracted for a second by the way Shane’s shoulders flex, and he has no time to react when Shane turns around and Ryan’s suddenly pushed over, hauled onto his back. “Fucking cut it out,” Shane says from where he’s looming over him now, one huge hand on Ryan’s chest holding him down.

Ryan gasps, a pathetic little sound wrenching its way out of his throat, and has no time to loathe himself for it. 

Shane doesn’t look mad, of course he doesn’t, but there’s something fiery in his eyes. When he straddles him, legs on either side of his hips, the smile on his face is a knife, and it cuts right through whatever convinced Ryan he was the one in control here. “I’m not your bitch,” he says, his voice low, and Ryan wants to say, _prove it,_ wants to rile him up a little more, wants to see what Shane might do, then. He calculates the odds of Shane leaving him high and dry. He probably wouldn’t, not with how he’s looking at him and how he’s on his way to half-hard again, but Ryan’s not going to take any chances. 

“So,” Shane says, “where were we? You want this?”

 _Fucker._ Ryan, much to his dismay, doesn’t have enough self control to do anything but nod, and Shane smiles a little wider. “Yeah. Of course you do.” 

“Hey—“ 

“Want it more than I do, probably.”

Ryan swallows. “Shane—“ 

“Got your magic word for me that you love so much?”

He quite genuinely can’t believe he wants to bang such a _nuisance._ Ryan moves his hips a little, and Shane’s lashes flutter. It’s fucked, seeing someone want something so bad. It’s more fucked knowing Shane must be seeing exactly the same thing on his face when he seems to gather his self control again and leans in a little.

“Come on, Ryan. You gonna say it?”

It’s not fair. Not with the way Shane’s still moving back against him, just fractions of a movement, but they make the tips of Ryan’s fingers tingle where they’re dug into Shane’s waist. Not with the way Shane’s hair is falling into his face, just as messy as he is. 

Ryan thinks about how much he wants to pull it, and that does it. He can’t wait any longer. “Please,” Ryan hears himself say, “Shane. Please.” 

Shane grins, satisfied with the answer, and finally, finally, _finally_ gets on his dick, letting out a moan and digging his fingernails into the skin of Ryan’s arm where he’s steadying himself when he’s all the way seated in his lap.

Ryan on the other hand, for one petrifying moment, thinks he may be at risk of passing out (bad) or coming immediately (worse), but he grabs Shane’s thighs to ground him in reality, exhales shakily, and the moment passes.

“You good?”

Ryan has no idea whatever his face is doing right now, and he’s glad. Judging from Shane’s worried expression when Ryan opens eyes he didn’t realize he had clenched shut, he probably looks nothing short of insane. “I’m. Good,” he manages to get out, his tone not really supporting the statement.

“Cool. So,” Shane circles his hips, “we doing this?”

Ryan moves, just a little, a nonverbal _yes._

They find a rhythm after that together, and Ryan’s shy with it at first, not sure how exactly Shane wants it and less sure how to ask him, but it doesn’t matter. A couple minutes in, Shane puts a hand on his chest, smiles that insufferable smile of his Ryan sees in every daydream and nightmare lately. 

“Spend all that time in the gym, are you gonna fuck me like you mean it?”

Unbelievable. “Who says I mean it?”

Shane laughs, dirty, clenches around his dick, and Ryan chokes on his own words. Shane’s got a point, Ryan means it with every bone in his body.

And what Shane wants, he gets, if only because Ryan wants it, too. So Ryan gets to work, tightens his grip on Shane’s narrow hips, holds him in place when he drives into him in earnest, making him yelp and wiping that cocky expression off his face for once. Fingernails dig into his arm again so hard it hurts and Ryan has never wanted to be anywhere as badly as he wants to be here right now.

He remembers his own foolish self, months ago, how one of the first things when assessing Shane, taking him all in, was that there was a chance he may be a virgin or at the very least inexperienced, and if he wasn’t busy fucking Shane _like he means it,_ he would laugh until he cried, probably — that the guy ever gave him a notion of purity or preservation. There’s nothing less pristine than the guy in his lap, slack-jawed and whiny when Ryan rediscovers the spot he found earlier inside him, the one that makes his eyes fall shut and his legs shake. Judging from the noises coming out of him, Shane is really, _really_ into this. Ryan’s allowed to feel a little smug about it. 

He doesn’t realize how close he himself is until Shane gets a hand around his own dick and starts getting himself off, desperate little sounds spilling from his mouth, and Ryan fucks into him harder, a bruise-grip on his hips, desperate for him to come first, like he’s trying to prove something.

And Shane does, but it doesn’t really matter — the second he clenches around him like he’s doing it on purpose to ruin Ryan’s life and yelps “oh, God, Ryan, _please,”_ it’s over for Ryan, too, and _he’s_ the one to whine like a bitch when Shane comes maybe half a minute before he does, spurting over his hand and Ryan’s chest.

It feels like he’s floating for a second, and he only really enters reality again when Shane gets off his dick, falling into the bed next to him.

“What the fuck,” Shane says, and Ryan can’t help but huff out a weak laugh at how absolutely startled he sounds, “seriously. What the fuck.”

“I know.”

He’s not sure he can move, and Shane, ever the gentleman, is the one to roll the condom off him and tie it up to toss aside. Ryan winces, oversensitive.

Shane runs a finger over his jaw in what Ryan assumes is tenderness, but then Shane wipes his hand on his towel. “You got cum on your face.”

“Thanks.”

Shane leans over and kisses him, winding his gross, wet fingers in Ryan’s hair. Ryan doesn’t even care. So tenderness it is, maybe.

“We should shower,” he says once they’ve broken apart. 

Ryan nods, and doesn’t make any attempt to move, despite of what a grand idea it is. Instead, he says, to Shane’s ceiling, “By the way, if you don’t get that dick inside me anytime soon, I think I will go clinically insane.” 

As if he hasn’t already. 

“Okay.” Shane’s still panting like he just ran a marathon, and it makes Ryan feel on top of the world, “I can’t feel my legs right now. But, you know. I’ll take you up on it”

“Deal?

“Deal.”

Ryan grins. He’s spent, satisfied. “Great.” 

“Yup,” Shane says, and he looks anywhere but at Ryan when he adds, quietly, “you kind of are.” 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [NOW WITH ART!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25531198)  
> thank you all so, so much for the support on this one — i hope you have as much fun reading this as i had coming up it. special shoutout to my beta [val](https://archiveofourown.org/users/billykaplan) who taught me where and when to capitalize certain words. i didn't learn from it and will continue making the same mistakes. but thanks anyway!!

Clad in black jeans even tighter than his usual fits and a tiny, bright-blue shirt that clings to his body and reveals just a tiny sliver of his stomach, Shane is the stuff of nightmares. 

Not because of the outfit. Outfit’s good. On their way to the bar, touching shoulders in the backseat, Ryan thought of at least three different things to bend him over once they’d get back to Shane’s later. And over the course of the hour they’ve been here, he has, several times, seriously considered just dragging Shane into the bathroom and letting him have his way with him.

 _Considered,_ past tense. 

Right here, right now, the only thing on his mind is fleeing the premises.

The situation is objectively fine. There’s nothing wrong. It’s just that Ryan deleted all his dating apps the other day, on a whim and for no apparent reason, except now he realizes the reason is quite obviously chatting up some guy at the bar 20 feet away from him. 

He sighs, takes a sip of his drink which tastes sour all of a sudden. This whole thing shouldn’t feel like anything. And it doesn’t, at least not anything solid or palpable. Sure, there’s a feeling of some kind, but he has no desire to dissect it — much like a dead frog in science class, he knows it’ll be ugly and scare him to death upon poking and prodding at it any further.

So instead of doing that and ending up nauseous like his middle school self did, he turns around to finish his drink, no desire to bear witness to whatever is about to go down here. He remembers the first and only time they met here, remembers the pit in his stomach upon being around Shane back then and how it’s still there, except for different reasons. Things don’t change.

Maybe Ryan did, though. 

• • •

He had looked at his chat logs once more before he had deactivated his accounts, and he remembers very viscerally the _Check their last online activity!_ pop-up that had appeared when he was casually checking Shane’s account — spending 10 bucks a month on the Premium version of the app to get that feature had seemed laughable back then.

He’d like to know, now, though.

He’d desperately like to know.

• • •

Ryan’s outside waiting when Shane calls his name and does that half-jog thing to get to him faster, as if normal walking won’t suffice and Ryan will disappear into thin air if he doesn’t make it in time. It feels like something out of a cheesy movie — one of those now-surreal pre-9/11 airport scenes where the love interest comes running after the protagonist, meeting them by the gate to say a heartfelt goodbye. Or maybe give them hell for something. 

“Hi,” he says, “wait.”

So Ryan waits. Uber’s not here anyway.

“You alright?”

Ryan nods, buries his hands in his pockets, and tilts his head back to look at the stars dotted across the sky tonight. He exhales the breath he was holding, the one he always holds before he says something he knows might be stupid. It’s been happening disproportionally often lately, and him being drunk won’t help. “Wanna know something?”

“Go on.”

“A while ago, I sucked this guy off in the bathroom,” he starts, and Shane snorts.

“Great. Exactly what I wanna hear.”

“Shut up, Shane, I’m getting somewhere here. I sucked off this guy, and at the time I wasn’t— I didn’t pick him on purpose but I think... he looked like you. Not as— He wasn’t that hot, but he— Tall. Ugly shirt.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. And he— God, he wouldn’t shut the fuck up. And I— I don’t think I was thinking about you. But I would’ve. If I… You know?”

“If you let yourself.”

“Yeah. You really get it. Shoulda been a phy— phi— philosophy teacher.”

“Minored in it, actually.”

Shane’s smile is cute and maybe not directed at Ryan at all, but he feels it all over anyway, or maybe that’s just the drunk buzz in his body. He grabs for Shane’s wrist more subconsciously than anything, stares at it for a second once he’s got it in his hand as if he can’t recall how it got there. 

“That was a friend, you know. Married, too. I wasn’t exactly trying to fuck anyone in there,” Shane says, as if he’s the one who has to explain himself and not Ryans sulky, stupid self.

“I’m not mad at you.” Still holding his wrist. Tomorrow morning, he will thank himself for not downing the shots he almost ordered when he saw Shane talking to someone else, because one more drink and he’s sure he wouldn’t be able to remember the exact thrum of Shane’s pulse beneath his fingers.

“I think you’re mad at yourself, not me,” Shane says, and then, “and I think your Uber’s here,” but he shows no intention of wrestling his hand out of Ryan’s grip, either. 

“‘kay. I’ll call another. Come home with me?”

It sounds like a plea, because that’s what it is. Shane shakes his head. “You’re drunk.”

“Yeah. So.”

“I don’t wanna be your drunk, sad fuck of the night, Ryan. Sleep it off.”

Frustrating, but even in Ryan’s state of being, it seems kind of reasonable. He nods. 

His Uber driver honks. Because Ryan is Ryan and seemingly hell-bent on pouring out his stupid heart tonight, he lets himself say what’s been on the tip of his tongue for minutes. “Can you— can you not go home with anyone else, though?”

Shane stares at him for a second, then shakes his head, laughing as if Ryan told the joke of the century, or like maybe Ryan _is_ the joke of the century. “You don’t get it,” Shane says, and he takes Ryan’s face between those huge hands of his and gives him a kiss as gentle and sweet as a drunk kiss can be. Here, outside, where the entire world can see it. “It’s insane how much you really don’t get it.” 

His driver honks again, three times now. When he walks there, he imagines Shane staring at him, and when he’s in the backseat and looking out the window, he is. From the distance, he can’t tell if he’s smiling, but he likes to imagine he is.

* * *

They don’t talk about it. 

Ryan waits for it, every time his phone chirps, every time they’re alone in a room, every time either of them has got their hands on the other.

He knows that he needs to be the one to ask, _what is it that I don’t get, I feel like I very much get it,_ but he also knows that — with Shane being Shane — there _will_ be a reply, and the idea of certainty, of an out-loud definition of the way things are... 

Whatever it is, he’s worried that he’ll get more than he bargained for.

Or less.

He fears less might be worse.

* * *

Whether he got to take part in them as a kid or as a teacher, Ryan’s always enjoyed field trips and excursions — but now, sitting in Shane’s apartment on his first afternoon of hanging out with Obi and bored out of his mind, he decides he actually fucking loathes them.

To be fair, it’s not like he _has_ to be here. Shane had told him he could just pop in every afternoon to feed the cat, but it’s just more _convenient,_ that’s all. He wouldn’t have to borrow Sara’s car every afternoon. Shane’s apartment is closer to the school, and Ryan can take his bike to get there. Shane has a bigger selection of DVDs, and he’s got Hulu. Ryan doesn’t want Obi to be alone all day. Shane’s bed is more comfortable than his own. 

Shut up.

The annoying and absolutely useless conversation he has in his head to justify why exactly he’s going to be sleeping on Shane’s side of the bed tonight — it’s so Obi won’t be confused! — is interrupted by somebody entering the apartment, and he squeaks, dropping the bowl he was holding onto the carpet, contents spilling everywhere.

When the person comes into view, it’s a dude. Tall. “Oh,” he says, with a voice eerily similar to one Ryan knows intimately by now, “hi. Sorry for the scare. I’m Scott.”

He looks like Shane, but in a very not-Shane way. Close enough in height and facial features that he would cause Ryan to do a double-take if he walked past him in the street, but not too similar to slip into uncanny valley territory. 

Ryan clears his throat, trying desperately not to look like he just almost pissed his pants and probably failing at it. “Hi, um.“

“You’re Ryan, right?”

He nods, too taken aback to do anything else, and Scott smiles, bends down a little to scratch Obi’s head where he’s rubbing against his shin. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Ryan swallows, staring at the muesli he spilled on the carpet for lack of anything to do or say. 

“I usually pop by to feed the baby when Shane’s not home,” Scott explains when Ryan stays silent, and Ryan needs a moment to realize he’s talking about the cat. “I figured Shane just didn’t ask me this time ‘cause it’s a given. Seems like he’s in good hands, though.”

“D-do you want a coffee, or...”

Ryan feels so fucking awkward it’s incredible, and Scott can probably tell. When Ryan looks at him again, he smiles, something like sympathy or maybe just second-hand embarrassment on his face. “Thanks, but I’ll get out of your hair so you can deal with the whole cereal shebang. Take care, right?”

Ryan swallows. “I. Yeah. Likewise.” 

“Glad I finally got to meet you.”

Ryan stares at the door for quite a while once he’s gone. 

• • •

“How’s DC treating you?”

“See for yourself.” 

Ryan’s phone vibrates. It’s a selfie with that stupid, giant Abe Lincoln statue. He grins.

“Wow. Getting jealous over here.”

Shane, slightly pixelated on Ryan’s laptop screen because of his shitty motel wifi, smirks. “Of me or him?”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

He picks up Obi, holds him into the camera, and Shane gets to see around 5 seconds of him before he starts wrestling out of Ryan’s grip. “He’s gonna hate me by the end of this week. I vacuumed earlier and he hid for a solid two hours.”

“Vacuumed. Why?”

Ryan sighs. “Spilled muesli.”

Shane‘s lip quirks like he’s about to laugh at him, but it’s interrupted by a yawn. “Well, either way. I’m gonna— get some stuff done and then hit the hay. Long day tomorrow.”

“Smithsonian?”

Shane nods, the movement so enthusiastic a strand of hair bounces free from the floral headband he’s wearing, and Ryan knows he’s containing himself from going off about it right now, _did you know they have the so-and-so exhibit now, I can’t wait to show you 30,000 pictures of dusty fossils and vintage dolls and whatever the fuck else is in the Smithsonian._

He kind of wishes he _would_ go off, even though he knows he’d sit here for another hour. He almost tells Shane to. Instead, what he says is, “Wish I could go,” and Shane smiles, soft and sleepy. 

“Wish you could, too.”

It’s eerily similar to a _wish you were here,_ and when he closes his laptop shut minutes later, he feels as if that is exactly what they said, anyway.

* * *

The first attempt is an outright disaster.

He had the foresight to turn off the smoke detector, at least, so he doesn’t view it as a complete failure — and either way, how does that saying go again? Rome wasn’t built in a day.

It wasn’t built in two and a half afternoons either, which is the time he has to perfect this particular endeavor, but that’s neither here nor there — it’s a crackpot idea more than anything. A man gets bored sometimes. It’s not like he’s trying super hard. He just spends an entire afternoon and evening watching several YouTube videos on the topic in question and completely forgets to go to the gym. That’s all. 

He invites Sara over on Thursday evening — both for dilemma-assessment and to inquire about how exactly he managed to bring one of Shane’s orchids to the brink of death within the short number of days he’s been here — and she straight up laughs at him. She takes a picture of the whole situation to text Mari, and he can just barely keep her from sending one to Shane as well.

 _It’s a surprise,_ he tells her, face undoubtedly red and eyes fixated on the ground, and that must make something in her break because she does, without further complaint, help him pick apart the exact reasons that caused the damn thing to burn to bits in the first place.

* * *

The sound of keys in the door on Friday evening might be the most comforting thing Ryan’s heard in a good while.

“Oh, hello,” Shane says when he spots him on the couch, and the genuine surprise in his voice is followed by a very casual, “cat still alive?”

Obi’s ears perk up at that, and once he’s stretched and yawned he trudges over to him, demanding scritches. Once he’s lugged his suitcase into the living room, Shane picks him up, holding him to his chest while he inquires about whether Ryan fed him well, _I think he did, think you’ve gotten a bit chubby, actually, buddy,_ and Obi _mrrps_ back, like he has any idea what Shane’s saying. 

Then again, maybe he does. Probably some kind of vegan thing. 

“So,” Shane says once he’s gently set Obi down again, “wasn’t really expecting you.”

Ryan swallows, turns the TV off. “Oof. Okay.”

A sigh. “I didn’t mean— I’m glad you’re here, moron.” When he looks at Shane, he’s got his arms crossed, letting his gaze wander, probably trying to assess if Ryan’s caused any significant damage to his place. He frowns when his eyes land on the cake dome on his kitchen counter, and then he stares at Ryan, looking positively mind-blown. “What’s this?”

Ryans waits a beat too long to answer when he realizes, in horror, that this is awful. This is incriminating. This is the worst idea anyone’s ever had.

No matter that he spent two entire afternoons flour-covered and with a cramp in his wrist to somehow make this _right,_ to make it nice— it just seems like overkill, now. He knows Shane doesn’t like surprise parties, who the fuck is he to assume he’d like a surprise means-way-more-than-Ryan-would-ever-admit surprise cake?

Shane’s staring at it, still.

Throat dry, he gulps and forces out, “It’s… I doubt it’s good as yours are but I just thought, you know. Ha. I got bored. Welcome home.”

He wonders if it would be suspicious to just make a run for it. Storm out of the door. Surely, despite his long legs and healthy diet, Shane’s not in good form, man’s never seen a gym from the inside and surely, homemade granola bars and cum alone don’t provide enough protein. 

And he’ll probably be too busy laughing at Ryan to run, anyway. 

God, Ryan is such a fucking _idiot._ Shane will never let this go. He’ll—

“Ryan?” Shane says, and he doesn’t look like he’s about to laugh at all. “C’mere.”

So Ryan obliges, and he is, as soon as he’s in reaching distance, hauled him into a hug that is both surprising and not surprising at all. Ryan sinks into it like it’s quicksand, letting himself be pressed against Shane’s chest while Shane nuzzles into his hair. “Missed you,” he breathes, so quiet that Ryan suspects he wasn’t even intended to hear it, and it pierces his chest, lodges straight into his heart, and then it’s his and his forever. 

Shane creates space between them and Ryan just wants to go back, let himself be held again immediately and indefinitely, but it turns out the only reason for the distance is so Shane can finally, _finally_ kiss him, and he will take that.

• • •

They end up in the bedroom soon enough, Ryan’s head hitting the pile of pillows behind him when he gets maneuvered onto the mattress. Shane is all up in his space, crowding between his legs and kissing him like his life depends on it until Ryan can barely catch a breath, let alone a single thought. Shane’s got a couple days worth of stubble and Ryan, not quite used to it, is surprised by how much he’s into it — but then again, he’s beginning to think there are very few things Shane could do that Ryan wouldn’t be into.

And as much as he enjoys making out with him, he breathes a sigh of relief when Shane gets his shirt off and makes his way down his chest, leaves a trail of kisses from his clavicle down to his navel and then back up to swirl his tongue around Ryan’s nipple. Ryan whines. 

Shane looks up, grinning, and Ryan shrugs. “It’s a thing.”

“I’ve noticed.” He does move downward after paying some more attention to his pecs, shoves Ryan’s shorts and underwear just far down enough to get his hand around his dick, and God, Ryan’s been _aching_ for this. 

Shane gets his mouth around him, then, uses the wetness of it to ease the way when he gets his hand around him as well. Ryan’s not sure he will ever get used to how easy Shane makes this seem. It’s not that he himself is _bad_ or even just mediocre at sucking cock, hell, if there was some sort of rating system he wouldn’t be short of good reviews as far as he’s aware, but— and then Shane trails his mouth up again, does that tongue-swirly thing along his slit and Ryan abandons whatever train of thought he had.

Good at multitasking, he pulls Ryan’s underwear further down, moves his hand there, and then he stops dead in his tracks, pulls off of him, stares. Ryan — once he manages to snap out of the brief daze he gets staring at the string of spit connecting the head of his dick and Shane’s pink, pink mouth — grins at the face he’s making, tilts his hips up just a little.

“Are you wearing a—” It’s more of a rhetorical question, but Ryan still hums in confirmation, and Shane lets out a soft sigh before he gets his mouth on Ryan’s dick again, taking him down his throat this time as he lets his hand wander to ghost his fingers over the base of the plug.

“Was waiting for you,” Ryan confesses, his voice a couple notes higher than he wants it to be, and Shane moans around him, starts playing with the toy in him, twisting it, pulling it out a little and then pushing it back in, and Ryan is lost.

Shane gets rougher with it, his actions just as urgent as Ryan feels, and when he pulls it out entirely, leaving him empty and wanting, Ryan yelps. “God, just— please fuck me.”

Shane sits up a little, grins. “Need something to fill the void, hm?”

It’s tacky and stupid and awful, and Ryan falls for it, hard.

And God, _does_ he need it.

They’ve done some stuff. They haven’t done this — last time Shane was over at his place, a couple days before he left, they almost, almost went there, Shane getting as far as two fingers deep into Ryan. But then, even among the noise he was making, they could hear the sound of the front door clicking shut. Which— it’s not like Sara and Ryan aren’t adults who _know_ there will be some unavoidable awkwardness from accidentally hearing the other one bone from time to time, but he knew that this particular dick, this particular _guy_ would make him so embarrassingly noisy she’d never let it go. Unless he had it in this mouth of course, which ended up being their alternative.

Now, though. Now they’ve got all the privacy and time in the world, and Ryan’s about to make some good use of it if it kills him.

He reaches out, grabs blindly for the used-once bottle he’d placed on top of Shane’s copy of _SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome_ earlier today _._ “Here. Take mine.”

“You brought your own— Wait, this and your stuff all over the place, have you been _staying_ here?”

“Thought it’d be stupid to commute the whole week. _What?_ It was convenient.”

“You’re infuriating.”

Ryan shrugs and pops the cap off before Shane snatches it from his hand and reads the label. He sniffs, his face scrunching up. “Is this flavored?”

“...Yeah?”

“What are you, 17?”

“It’s strawberry! And... vegan.”

A smile grows on Shane’s stupid, smug face. “Did you get this just for me?” 

Of course he did. “No.”

Shane squirts some in his hand, then licks it, looking put off. “Wow, that _is_ dreadful.”

“Sorry, they were out of oatmeal flavor or whatever your lame ass likes.” 

He receives a glare for that, but it’s soon enough interrupted by a knowing little smirk. 

“So you did get it for me.”

Shit. “So what if I did. Can we get on with it?”

Shane scoots back, gives Ryan some room and a cocked brow. He takes that as a yes. 

* * *

He’s never been this impatient. He knows that technically, he can and should take his time, and that’s what Shane’s doing, too — trails wet fingers up over his taint and balls, then, slowly, presses two of them in, then up, and Ryan squirms, pushing back against it like this could ever be enough. 

But it takes him maybe five minutes of this to tell Shane to hurry up, though five minutes feel like an eternity to him. Shane does voice some genuine concerns, but even he’s only human, and it doesn’t take much begging to get him to finally pull his dick out.

“Condoms are in the drawer,” Shane says, kissing his neck, as if Ryan’s not aware, and more importantly, as if Ryan cares about that right now.

“You, uh. Do you think you wanna maybe—”

He’s stammering, like Shane’s not knuckle-deep inside of him and as if Shane wouldn’t take anything Ryan is about to offer him right now anyway. Ryan knows him well enough by now.

“Do I wanna maybe...?” 

Ryan’s aware that Shane very much knows what he’s asking, or at least suspects it because really, how many things could there be to ask for right now, but it seems as if he needs him to say it.

“Just— y’know. Fuck me without one. It’s—I… I did bring my last test results, so. If you wanna see them.”

Shane sits up, looking slightly exasperated. “You... brought your STD test results.”

“Yeah, I mean. I’ve just… been thinking about it.” He _knows_ he’s bright red, but there’s no backpedaling now. There hasn’t been backpedaling in a while. “I mean, this isn’t the first time we’re— I was just. Just thinking.”

“Yeah,” Shane says, dryly, “everybody knows that if you screw, like, 3 times, you’re practically married.”

“Forget about it, then.”

“I’m _not_ — I want it,” Shane says, and he sounds earnest, “I just didn’t think _you’d_ ever want— it’s cool, though. And you don’t have to get up and, like, make me sign a form or whatever. I trust you. Don’t ruin the moment.” 

Ryan has no time to consider the wholesomeness of that statement because Shane leans in, then, gets his fingers back inside, and his tone shifts into something more intense when he says, “Really want me to come in you, huh.” 

He makes some sort of sound that Shane interprets, correctly, as confirmation, and he answers it with a light, “Alright, then. Let’s boogie.”

Ryan feels like rolling his eyes, but instead he says, “Yeah, come on,” sounding quite desperate for it and not caring at all, “I won’t break,” and then, giving Shane an undoubtedly cheesy wink, “this isn’t my first rodeo.”

• • •

It _kind of_ feels like his first rodeo.

He didn’t quite realize he was this much out of practice, or maybe it’s just because he really did make Shane rush through all the preamble. It’s almost enough to make a grown man cry, or in his case, enough to make a grown man dig his fingernails into Shane’s freckled shoulder and use his other hand to form a fist he can groan into when Shane’s maybe halfway in. Shane looks down at him, his gaze soft and alert. 

“Too much? Should I—“

“I’m fine, just— go slow. What the fuck, Shane.”

Shane smiles, gives him another inch, and Ryan bites his lip just as Shane says, “Thought we had this discussion. Proportional.”

“Yeah, it sure fucking is. This is insane. I’m insane for doing this. I have a class to teach on Monday and I’ll — _God_ — be useless.”

“Just say you tore a muscle.”

“Sure.”

“Or _I_ tore a muscle, rather—”

“I’m going to walk out.”

“Oh, will you?” Shane grins and moves, then, ever-so-slightly and testing the waters, looking at his face for any sort of reaction, and Ryan jerks his chin up in a nod that tells him to get on with it.

The first real thrust knocks the wind out of him, less out of surprise and more out of realization — the realization being that he’s really, truly letting a guy who says shit like _Let’s boogie_ raw him — and whatever pathetic noise wrings itself out of Ryan’s throat doesn’t make Shane stop this time. Instead, he just does it again, a little more determination and intent in it this time. 

And Ryan, oh, he’s got it bad. 

Too much too fast and he knows his body won’t exactly thank him for this tomorrow. He himself, though, he’s thanking the fucking heavens, thanks whatever fucking entity put them in eachother’s vicinity, thanks _himself_ for giving in, because— 

“Fuck, this is good.”

“Sounding a little surprised there.” Shane smooths a hand over his pecs, pinches a nipple. Ryan yelps, and so Shane does it again. 

“Just didn’t think you had it in you. No, _fuck,_ core strength. Didn’t expect any stroke game.”

“That’s just the Shane Madej way, pal.”

Ryan groans, more because of his obnoxiousness than anything else, though the dick in him is not _that_ insignificant in contributing to any noise he’s making. “Can you not call me pal right now?”

Shane stills, raises a brow. “Hit me up with a better pet name, then. Baby?”

He feels like he’s been punched in the stomach, and he thanks the heavens that he gets red-faced during sex anyway, because the last thing he needs to see when screwing Shane Madej is the knowing grin he would get upon seeing Ryan blush.

“Shut up.”

Shane does shut up, falls into his rhythm again, and watches Ryan’s face closely when he circles his hips and somehow manages to hit the spot that robs Ryan of any composure he thought he had. 

He forgets how to breathe for a second, and Shane must notice, because he doesn’t let up, right until Ryan’s reduced to a whimpering mess, nails biting into Shane’s covers so hard he’s afraid he’s breaking both. 

His thoughts are racing and yet tethered, like the universe may not have stopped moving but everything is still reduced to this moment right here, time frozen in this room and this very room alone. “Jesus. I— don’t stop.”

Shane runs a hand through his own hair. Ryan doesn’t think he’s ever made this much eye contact during sex with someone he wasn’t dating, and the thought makes his blood run hot. “Never will if you don’t want me to.”

It’s so much. It’s too much. 

“I— Shane, please.”

It must be obvious that he’s _this_ close, as Shane wraps a gentle, big hand around him, touching him exactly the way Ryan needs him to, like he’s had years of practice, like he’s spent a lifetime figuring out every single thing that Ryan wants. “Come on,” he says, voice as tender as it is strained, looking at him in a way that makes Ryan feel vulnerable and open and hopelessly, utterly _fucked_ in more ways than one _,_ “come for me, baby.”

And he does, convulsing and thrashing and moaning some sort of amalgamation of every curse word in the English language and Shane’s name.

The only thing pulling him out of his post orgasm high is feeling Shane’s eyes on him, Shane, who’s stopped moving and who asks him, in a horribly shy and gentle voice, “C-can I—” like Ryan could ever deny him anything, like Ryan hasn’t served him his heart on a platter a dozen times and counting.

He doesn’t say yes. He doesn’t have to. Instead, he pulls him in again, winds a hand in his hair and murmurs a soft, “I missed you too,” and that’s all it takes. Shane sighs, drops his forehead down to Ryan’s clavicle, and makes a sound that sounds like a sob when he spills in him. 

Moments pass. Ryan feels the loss in his entire body when Shane pulls out; knows he’s going to be sore tomorrow, knows he’s going to feel it all day if not the day after. He doesn’t care.

He _wants_ to feel it tomorrow. 

Hell, he wants to feel it all the time. 

* * *

“Hey. Sleeping beauty.” He opens one eye, and he winces when a wet washcloth hits his chest. He makes no intention of actually getting up or doing anything with it, just moves it off his body and drops it on Shane’s mattress. He’ll live — it’s not the only wet spot on there.

“‘m not sleeping. You put me in a coma.”

“Sorry.” Shane doesn’t sound like it at all, and when Ryan fully looks at him, he’s holding a plate. “I’m excited for this,” he says, “I have to admit that even being me, I’ve never had after sex cake.”

Ryan groans. “After Sex Cake sounds like one of those bands you like.”

“Ugh. Want some of this, by the way?”

Ryan waves him off. “All yours, it’s got that oat stuff I don’t like.”

Shane just shrugs before he sits down at the foot of his bed, taking a bite of what Ryan deems a pretty delicious looking vegan chocolate cake like Shane’s made before. He watches Shane intently while he chews slowly. “Wow,” he says once he’s swallowed, putting his fork down, “Ryan.”

“Is it good?”

“It’s terrible. But that’s not the point.”

Ryan must be frowning, because Shane lets out a soft _aww_ and ruffles his hair. Which just makes him frown more. 

“I’m just saying... Look, it’s a disaster, but I admire it. It’s kind of like you.”

“Can you not bully me when I’ve got your cum dripping out of me?” 

Shane makes a face, shovels another fork of cake into his mouth, like maybe it’ll taste better if he has more of it. “Don’t say that out loud.”

“Oh, _now_ you think it’s gross?”

He shakes his head. “The opposite. I got a refractory period, Ryan, please wait at least,” and he stops to look at his watch, “20 more minutes before being raunchy with me.”

_“Raunchy.”_

Shane shrugs, sets the plate down on the floor. Ryan does kind of admire him having eaten the entire slice, considering it apparently sucked. Maybe it didn’t. And even if it truly did — it still did its job alright.

Though there really, honestly _was_ no job to be done — no ulterior motive. He just wanted to do something nice for him, and so he did. He’s painfully reminded of their first day, of how he assumed Shane’s home-baked generosity was just a ploy, some sort of manipulative tactic to reel people in.

Sadly, it does seem as if Shane’s just really fucking lovely.

Shane’s looking at him, still, like maybe he’s waiting for him to say something, or like he’s trying to muster up the will to say something himself. His hair is all over the place, sticking up where it’s not clinging stupidly to his forehead, and Ryan sits up and reaches out to tuck it behind his ear — it’s gotten long enough for that to be a thing. He lets his hand linger there, cups Shane’s face. 

He startles himself when he says, “I really like you.”

It’s out, then. And if he ever expected himself to say this out loud, he would have assumed it to feel like ripping off a band-aid — instead it’s nothing but a weight off his shoulders, the feeling akin to dropping an anchor in the ocean to aid him in staying right where he is. 

And Shane — 

Shane, who barely ever seems to shut up, opens his mouth as if to answer but then closes it again like he changed his mind, like he thought better of it, and they both smile when he leans in to press a kiss to Ryan’s forehead, his reddened cheeks, his lips.

That’s fine. He needs no reply.

He gets it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [a ray of fucking sunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25531198) by [weakspots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakspots/pseuds/weakspots)




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